Raven's Rants

In the advertising world, "targeting" is a buzz word. Everyone is talking about how they can better target their advertising and streamline their message. Of course, in advertising, targeting makes sense, if you can focus your message only on those most interested in hearing it, not only do you save money by not blasting your message to deaf ears, but you can repeat your message more often to those who might actually buy the product. So, targeting not only makes good business sense, but good advertising sense.

This trend of targeting can be found all around you. Speciality newspapers, cable television channels, trade publications and sectionalized Web sites are all examples of media producers targeting their content so advertisers can better target theirs.

In fact, every major vehicle of advertising has caught on to the idea of targeting. Even junk mailers have learned to target by zip code. In fact, the only major form of advertising not the least bit interested in targeting is, you guessed it, telemarketing.

Telemarketing has traditionally, and continues to largely, be content to call everyone in the phone book. In fact, in an attempt to make sure they don't miss anyone, telemarketers will start calling exchanges starting XXX-0000 and working their way through XXX-9999, hawking their wares every step of the way ignoring busy signals, hang ups and disconects as they go.

In fact, where other forms of advertising have invested a great deal of money to improve their targeting, telemarketing has invested money to fight it.

The first great example of this came with the invention of the telezapper. The wildly popular device, which retailed for about fifty dollars, tricked telemarketing computers into thinking that the number was deactivated. So, when telemarketing firms found out that millions of Americans didn't want their message so bad they were willing to invest fifty dollars of their hard-earned money to block it, did they realize that these people weren't good prospects and move on? No. They dumped millions into inventing a means to work around the telezapper and continue harassing the very people that wanted to hear from them the absolute least.

More recently, the telemarketing industry has sued, apparently successfully, to halt the federal "Do Not Call" list, for which some 50 million numbers were registered. The list, which industry leaders said would cost millions of dollars and thousands of jobs, provided stiff penalties to corporations that "cold called" numbers placed on the list.

While I can certainly understand the industry's desire to be free of unnecessary government legislation, as an advertising man, the question becomes clear, "What's the big deal? Why do you want to call these people in the first place? And what advertiser in his right mind would want to spend money contacting people that are going to be angry to hear from them?"

It's simple, no one would. All that doing that would achieve is creating a great deal of animosity toward the product and perhaps turn a lot of people away from it, people that otherwise might have considered it. There's simply no reason why calling "Do Not Call" subscribers is in the best interest of the advertiser.

However, it's clearly in the best interest of the telemarketer.

Telemarketing companies are paid by advertisers to promote a product. However, the company doesn't simply sign over a check to the company and hope for the best, they want something in return. That's why advertisers pay telemarketing firms on a combination of comission fees and per-call fees.

Years ago, comission fees were the bread and butter of telemarketing firms. The pennies made per call seemed like peanuts compared to the dollars that can be made from every sale. But, while this resulted in some high-pressure tactics being employed, it kept call volumes relatively low. There simply wasn't much benefit in calling people randomly and much of the focus was placed on previous customers, by far the best target for a sales pitch.

However as telemarketing became more common it became more irritating and fewer and fewer people started buying from the phones. In fact, a recent CNN poll found that less than 1% of people even considred buying things from telemarketers. Furthermore, companies not selling products over the phone, but rather, just promotising existing ones, began to join the fray. The result, comissions began to slip and that "per call" fee became more and more appealing.

Over time, the goal of telemarketing changed from trying to call a few people and make a lot of sales to calling a lot of people and treating comissions like bonuses. Where once the people making the calls were paid more or less on comission alone, now many, if not most, get paid per call with a comission bonus.

But while the pay-per-call system makes more sense for telemarking firms, after all, they don't want to go broke trying to earn comissions on a product no one wants, it makes very little sense for marketers. It's similar to running an ad on every television station in the nation when you only need to target a small market. But what it means is that well-meaning advertisers pay good money for a message to fall on deaf ears, ears that the telemarketers know don't want to hear what they have to say.

So basically, not only do telemarketers not care if they're interrupting you while you are eating dinner, doing work, taking a shower or a million other private activities, but they don't care if advertisers that support them get a bum wrap. All they want is a hearty check.

That's why, as bad as I feel for myself and the throngs of masses that have to endure the annoying phone calls, I feel almost as bad for the advertisers shelling out money. Most advertisers are small-business owners that just want an inexpensive way to promote their products to a lot of local citizens. This is why calls for vinyl siding, landscaping and gutter repair are so common.

These businessmen, while often very talented in their trade, lack the advertising knowledge to understand the pitfalls of direct marketing and they also lack the money to hire a regular ad agency or use more traditional advertising effectively. After all, for the same price as a few low-budget local TV ads that will only reach a small percentage of the target audience, telemarketers can call almost everyone in the area. To an inexperienced advertiser, this is very tempting.

And, on the surface, it can seem to work. It will, invariably, move some product and seem to pay for itself. However, when others refuse to try the product/service simply becuase they first heard about it via telemarketer or the company lacks the funds to move onto traditional advertising, growth is stiffled and the advertiser has to return to the telemarketer again and again to sustain sales, constantly targeting that 1% that buys over the phone while irritating the 99% that don't.

In their defence, some telemarketers have realized this fact and made some attempt to weed out people that don't want their calls. The Direct Marketing Association (The DMA), a trade group for telemarkters and direct mailers, has run their own version of the Do-Not-Call list for several years. While being on the list has definitely reduced the number of calls I have gotten, since it only applies to members of the DMA, which many telemarkters, especially local ones, aren't, it hasn't kept the phones silent. I still receive several calls per week despite being on the list and taking full advantage of current "do Not Call" legislaiton. Simply put, their efforts at self-regulation have proven ineffective and furthermore, since they're a plaintiff in the lawsuit to stop the federal list, their gestures now seem very hollow.

Simply put, telemarketing should have gone the way of the dodo years ago. Much like door-to-door salesmen, it's an ineffective form of promotion that is intrusive and irritating. The only thing keeping it alive at all is the throngs of telemarketers that are far better at promoting their own services than other people's products. The proof of that is in their approach and the companies that engage in it.

After all, you don't see Microsoft or IBM promoting via the phone. If it was truly the best way to push their wares, don't you think they would?

Give that some thought the next time you hang up the telephone on another annoying call. After all, odds are you're not the only one getting a bad deal out of telemarketing. In fact, I doubt you're even getting the worst.

Here's a statistic that you probably didn't know and almost certainly won't believe: The average dress size for a woman in the United States (and most of the world for that matter) is a fourteen.

If this shocks you or surprises you, you're not alone. I was shocked by it and nearly everyone I've talked to about it can't believe it either. It seems completely impossible that the average woman could have a dress size in the double digits, not in a country that values bikini-butts, grapefruit diets and Calvin Klien models.

But guess what, it's true, 100% undeniably true.

However, while this is great news to “bigger” women who just realized that they are either at, below or slightly above the statistical average, it does nothing at all to explain how we got such a warped notion of what “normal” really is. After all, most people, especially men, seem to think that a “normal” woman should have a dress size that could be counted on one hand.

To answer that question though, all you have to do is go to a movie, visit a store or simply stick your nose in a magazine. In no time at all you'll be surrounded by images of women with unnaturally small waists and dress sizes that barely break positive digits.

Yes, these women are beautiful, there's no denying that, that's why they're in our movies, on our television, in our magazines and modeling our clothes. But still, the question is begged, “Where are the beautiful women with more normal figures?” After all, I've seen plenty of those walking around the streets, just not on my television.

Beats me.

But outside of the occasional one that either slips by or is thrown in to appease feminists that have, quite justly, been harping on this issue for years, you'll be lucky to spot any girl larger than a size 10 in a role where she's viewed as attractive, popular and sexy. In fact, on a recent edition of MTV's Beach House, Crystal and I could spot only one, one girl out of over 200, that had a figure large enough to be considered normal. To make matters worse, she had traded in the typical bikini for a tank top and shorts, an obvious attempt to hide her nonconformity.

However, none of this is news. We're pretty much all aware that the media skews its model base to unnaturally thin girls and that only 2% of all women naturally have the figure of a model (which, for the record, is usually between a dress size -2 and 2). We've all heard how this causes misconceptions about what a woman is supposed to look like and created problems such as anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders in young girls and teens.

But what we don't hear about is how unbelievably sexist this is and how this fear is used to generate billions in revenue.

If you go to a large department store, you'll probably find the women's section divided into two parts, regulars and pluses. However, at most stores, any woman over a size 12 is considered a “plus” and as such is forced to swallow her pride and “cross the line” into the plus side just to find clothes that fit her. This might not seem like a big deal, but the message it sends is very clear, “You're fat, you're not normal and you need a special section just for you.” It doesn't matter that many of these women are actually below the national average, corporate America is telling them that they're overweight.

However, in the same department store, if you pay a visit to the men's section, odds are you won't find any separation at all. You'll be able to find all sizes, from a 28 waist to well over a 50 in the same section, often on the same rack. Even the largest of men can go their entire lives without “crossing the line” or being called a “plus”. The worst men will ever hear is that they're a “big and tall” which makes being large sound like being tall, a genetic predisposition that's not the guy's fault at all.

If this isn't sexist, I don't know what is. But it's a trend that doesn't stop at just the clothes rack, it continues on into how we view our celebrities. The same media that has hounded Anna Nichole Smith and even Madonna about their weight has made hardly a mention about male celebrities such as Marlon Brando, Johnny Popper, and even American Idol winner Ruben Studdard. In fact, many larger male celebrities wind up becoming sex symbols while female ones become the butt of jokes almost overnight.

Though I hesitate to use the words “misogynistic conspiracy”, they seem to be the only words that come close to describing this injustice. But who's to blame for it? Is it men for continuing to judge women based on their looks? At least in part, after all, if women were judged by more internal attributes, this whole argument would be moot, but if men had a reasonable vision of what an average woman looked like, the world would be a much better place.

Is it the media for skewing the types of women it shows in order to get better ratings? Once again, partly, but once again there are beautiful women of all sizes and if we could change our image of what's normal I doubt that thinner would consistently get better ratings.

Is it companies trying to make money off of the fears of the female population? Bingo.

Think about it a second, women have an inherent understanding that, rightly or wrongly, they're going to be judged based upon their looks. This understanding drives women to want to be beautiful the same as it drives men (although to a somewhat lesser degree). However, if a woman is convinced that she's beautiful, she doesn't spend nearly as much keeping herself that way as she would trying to make herself beautiful if she's convinced she's unattractive. In short, if you show a picture of a beautiful woman and every female consumer that sees the ad says, “Hey, I look like that already!” they don't buy the product, there's no need.

Now, when you consider all of the products sold on the idea of beauty (diet aids, foods, clothes, makeup, hair products, even vacations and cars just to name a few) there's a LOT of money to be made by convincing the vast majority of women that they're not up to the standards of beauty.

This all relates back to something that advertisers call “need creation”. It's a broad term that refers to the techniques advertisers use to take products you never needed before and convince you that you can't live without them. You might never have needed a microwave oven, a cell phone or even a computer fifty years ago, but through clever marketing and adapting to societal changes, advertisers got more than enough people to adopt these products that now they are all but essential.

The same thing has happened with diet and beauty products. Most women don't truly need these items but through need creation, largely through the use of imagery beautiful and skinny women, have gotten enough people to adopt that almost every woman feels the need to diet, wear make up and dress in the best clothes. So good was the act that they even got men sold on the idea along the way, even though the women they love and cherish usually look nothing like the image that's being presented.

Inevitably, these images seeped out from the advertising pages and into the content pages. Models and celebrities got thinner and thinner over the years. “Twiggy” the 60's model famous for her extremely thin figure, is now put to shame by just the everyday runway model. Twiggy, who weighed 91 pounds when she first became famous, even said she felt fat compared to the other models she saw at a recent comeback fashion show she did.

This, in turn has seeped into department stores and our everyday lives. In fact, where in the 50's the average store mannequin had a waist 34 inches around, now it's only 31 (for the record, average waist size is around 37 inches). In some parts of California, only 10% of all stores even carry sizes 14 and above and more and more stores have the unreasonable expectation that women the majority of women are unnaturally thin.

I'm not falling for it and neither should you. If Marilyn Monroe can have a dress size between 12 and 16 (which she did in the sixties), so should any other woman in the nation and she shouldn't be forced to feel guilty about it, shop only in plus sized stores or to diet in order to fix her "condition". We don't treat men that way and to continue holding such unreasonable expectations of women we, as a society, are not only being cruel but also hypocritical.

But what can we do to stop it? After all, the problem seems to be all around us and there's millions of dollars invested in keeping the status quo. Between diet gurus and fashion magazines, no one causing the problem seems to be ready to relent on the issue. After all, when your family fortune is made by convincing women they're fat, you're not about to shut your doors and tell them the truth. That would just be stupid.

But we as individuals do have a lot of power. First and foremost, we can avoid falling for the lie and avoid giving into these dangerous stereotypes. It might not be easy, especially for those of us that had these images and these ideals beat into us from an early age, but it can be done. After all, everyone has their own idea of what beauty is, all we have to do is learn to listen to it instead of what others have been telling us all along.

Second, we can put different, more realistic images out there. Though magazines may not run your photos, the Internet is a great means of distribution. Services such as Kazaa and Morpheus allow people to swap pictures without ever seeing one another. While most of these photos are pornographic in nature, it doesn't mean you can't use the channel to get your message across.

In short, take a photo of yourself, it doesn't have to be a nude one or even a very sexy one, a school picture will do, and put it out there with a nondescript name such as “Pretty girl” so that it will be downloaded. Trust me, people will see it and even though this would never be able to outnumber the images forced down everyone's throat by the media, it only takes a few instances to plant the seeds of doubt and doubt in the myth is what needs to be raised.

Finally, stop supporting products that engage in this “need creation”. It should be pretty obvious who's doing what and by simply not doing business with these companies, you're sending a strong message. Companies take notice of even slight drop offs in product sales and, if you combine your boycott with a few well-written letters, they might be willing to actually listen to what you have to say.

After all, this whole issue started with the almighty dollar, it will probably have to end there as well.

In the meantime though, I encourage everyone to stop this charade and open your eyes to the not-so-bitter truth. There are beautiful people of all shapes, sizes and colors. The quicker we can all see that, the happier and better of we'll be as a society because we'll stop tormenting people based upon their appearance, and we'll stop setting a self-destructive double-standard.

In fact, putting an end to this gender/size warfare could be the biggest peace movement in the history of the modern world…

Over the past few days, I've seen a series of smug articles from war hawks asking the question "Where have all of the war protesters have gone since the American troops were welcomed in Baghdad?" After all, with France seeming to soften its anti-war line and many of the doves in Congress oddly silent, it seems that the anti-war crowd lost their fight.

Well, I can only speak for myself and those around me, but for us, the war did not magically become "all right", in fact, I can think of ten very good reasons why the hawks shouldn't be so smug about their "victory".

(Note: All of this information is accurate as of 4-27-2003)

1. No Weapons of Mass Destruction – In the few days since the American occupation of Baghdad and the complete fall of Iraq, exactly zero weapons of mass destruction have turned up. Though I've counted four false alarms including a supposed sarin-tipped missile (further tests came back negative), an active nuclear program that turned out to be using legitimate low-grade uranium (not fit for weapons use) and those famed mobile laboratories which, apparently, were used only for conventional weapons. Supposedly, this was a war about disarming Iraq, a feat that's yet to be accomplished since nothing to disarm has been found.
2. No Terrorists – Also in the days since the fall of Iraq, exactly one terrorist arrest has been made in the country. However, the man in question Abu Abbas has no connection to Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Sept. 11 or anything else to do with terrorism in the United States. Instead, he was the mastermind of a 1985 hijacking of an Italian cruise ship, an attack in which one passenger died. While it's nice to have him in custody, it's not exactly the kind of terrorist find the hawks were touting.
3. The financial toll – Some estimates of the cost of war and reconstruction put it at around 200 billion dollars. As one democratic senator pointed out, for that amount of money, the United States could insure every individual under the age of eighteen. This, of course, begs the question, which is a greater threat to America's youth, their inability to get adequate healthcare or a nation that lacks weapons capable of reaching our shores?
4. The Iraqi toll – How many Iraqi lives were lost in this affair? Sure, there were less than 150 coalition fatalities, but don't the Iraqis who died, civilian and military, count for something? Conservative estimates for Iraqi losses put them at over 1,000 civilian deaths and potentially over 10,000 military. Though loss of life is part of any war, to smugly tout the relatively minor loss of life on the coalition side without mentioning the other is to say that their lives were meaningless.
5. The Looting – Iraqis in Baghdad have taken to the street looting their city. While no one can blame them for looting from the regime that stole from them so long. Among the buildings that were looted, while the United States was supposedly in control of the city, are the Baghdad museum, including several artifacts from the dawn of civilization, all but one of the hospitals in the city and homes of several hard-working Iraqi citizens. In short, it's pretty obvious that cheering wasn't the only thing the citizens of Baghdad were doing.
6. The Ignoring of Bigger Threats – One television commentator said it best, if you want to find terrorists, you go to Western Pakistan, you want to find a nation that's a threat to the United States, you go to North Korea. We're spending billions of dollars to invade a poverty-stricken nation with few terrorists and no weapons capable of reaching us while terrorists elsewhere are plotting their next attack against us and rogue nations with missiles capable of reaching the United States are developing nuclear weapons. I'm not the only one that thinks this is backward.
7. Weak Saddam/Osama Link – The much sought-after and never-discovered Saddam/Osama link hasn't materialized as many hawks had promised it would. In fact, the only evidence of any Al Qaeda/Iraq link involves a meeting their respective leaderships had in 1998. No evidence of logistical or financial support has been found. In fact, since the war started with many Muslim fundamentalists actually found themselves HELPING the United States overthrow Saddam's secular regime and some have, since the fighting ended, declared themselves mayors of many of Iraq's major cities. One would think that if the Saddam/Osama link held any water that these people would have rallied to fight and die in order to kill the Americans, not aid them. However, it might be interesting to see if any new evidence comes up over the next few weeks.
8. Geopolitical Problems – Thanks to this war, NATO is in tatters, the United Nations is furious at us and the world sees us as a global bully. Then again, this is hardly surprising considering that our "Coalition of the Willing" is comprised mostly of nations like the Albania, Liechtenstein, Eritrea, and Macedonia (nations that provided no military and can offer little political support) is it any shock that the world is laughing at our "coalition". Saying that it's bigger than the one in the first gulf war because it has more nations is like saying 40 pennies are larger than 30 dimes because there are more of them. However, even with 40 nations in the coalition that leaves over 140 that aren't and, considering how desperate we were for members, I think it's safe to say that those who aren't in the coalition did not support this war.
9. Protests in Baghdad – While it's very true that many of the oppressed Shiite Muslims celebrated and rejoiced as American tanks poured into Baghdad, those same people are already, after barely a week and a half of occupation, turning to protest our continued presence. Even as we send people over to take control of the country, thousands of Iraqis are protesting daily against our presence and our plans for an interim government. The situation has been made worse by a weapons explosion that killed six Iraqi civilians. While some might call the Iraqi citizens ungrateful, something I have to at least partially agree with, it shows that A) We weren't as welcome as we originally thought and B) The Iraqis have a desire to set up their own government and C) They don't want our help or our influence in making it happen.
10. No Saddam Hussein – Once again, the United States finds itself playing the "Is he dead? Is he alive? Does it matter?" game with another leader. But instead of Osama, we now can't find Saddam. Though Bin Laden proved how hard it can be to find a single person, the fact that we haven't been able to even figure out if Saddam is alive or dead is yet another black eye to American military intelligence and to the "War on Terrorism"

The truth is that no one liked Saddam, even the war protestors, it's just that many felt it wasn't worth overthrowing him with unilateral action, especially at the expense of ignoring bigger threats and larger problems, a point that still remains very much valid. The war protests didn't stop because seeing some of the oppressed Iraqis embrace the American troops made everything fine and dandy, but because the war was over and protesting a war after it's finished is beyond stupid. After all, even the protests against the Vietnam War ended after the United States pulled out.

But the main thing to remember is this; the fact that the war is over doesn't mean that it's also justified. While I think everyone is glad that the loss of American life has been kept to a minimum and our soldiers will be returning home soon, the question about whether or not this is a justified war is a question that's still being answered and will continue to be answered for sometime.

However, judging from the early indications, I'd say it's the hawks that have the most to be embarrassed about. One might even say that the silence of the doves comes more from the feeling of sweet satisfaction than bitter shame. Because, unless something big turns up and quick, it's the case of the doves that will get the biggest bolstering in the aftermath of the war, not the hawks and, when the history books are finally written, they won't be speaking too favorably about our actions

I was once told that you could tell a lot about a political agenda by the people that supported it, that the types of people who support an agenda say almost as much about it as the issues themselves. Well, if that's the case, then what I've learned this past week is that the saber-rattlers and the people pushing forward the agenda for war are a bunch of immature children who can't let people disagree with them, especially other countries.

The first sign of this came on Wednesday, March 12, when two Republican lawmakers announced that they had successfully changed the name of "French Fries" and "French Toast" in the House cafeteria to "Freedom Fries" and "Freedom Toast" respectively. This change seems to indicate that these lawmakers and the people that helped them push their agenda were so fed up with France's anti-war stance that they couldn't stomach the idea of eating a food with the word "French" in the title.

But, needless to say, that's not where it stops. The very next day, on March 13, another Republican Representative proposed legislation that would have the state foot the bill for helping families of those who died in France during the two World Wars move their loved one's remains back to the United States. What's the reason for this? Well, the representative said that France does not "appreciate the sacrifices men and women in uniform have made to defend the freedom that the French enjoy today." However, this legislation faces a much more uncertain future than "Freedom Toast."

But don't get comfortable thinking that our government is the only one being immature, every day people have been doing it just as effectively. Also within the past week, Sofitel Hotels, a French company, had to pull the French flags off of their buildings citing threats that they'd received against the security of their employees and their guests. Other French products have been getting similar treatment, including French wines and cheeses.

Finally, don't think you have to be Frenchman or the French government to find yourself a victim of immature and brash treatment, all you have to be is against the war with Iraq. One San Diego Man, after flying home after a trip to Seattle found a handwritten note on the top of his "Notification of Baggage Inspection" card (it's a printed card they slide in if they open your checked baggage at an airport) that read "Don't appreciate your Anti-American attitude!" His crime, carrying two "No Iraq War" signs home with him in his suitcase.

Transportation Security Administration officials said they are looking into the matter.

Needless to say, all of these random acts of adolescence are uncalled for. They not only reflect very poorly on those that support the war, but on Americans in general. After all, we're supposed to be the nation where people are free to disagree on political issues. Republicans don't (usually) call Democrats "Anti-American" and Democrats haven't tried to rename "Banana Republic" t-shirts "Banana Freedom" because we realize on some fundamental level that even though we disagree on how to get things done, we're on the same side and none of the disagreements are to be taken personally.

But that's exactly what's happened to the war with Iraq, some people, mostly those in favor of going to war, have taken the issue personally and anyone or anything that doesn't agree is clearly anti-American and is a sign that they aren't patriotic, that they don't appreciate their freedoms and that they secretly want to see more people die and the Western societies crumble to pieces.

It's an attitude that's nothing more than a figment of their insecurities and sane people on both sides of the issue can see that plainly.

A lot of bright, intelligent and very appreciative people don't think that war is the best solution. Just because someone doesn't think that bombing a country halfway across the world will accomplish anything, doesn't mean they aren't grateful for their freedoms or that they're Anti-American. They just disagree with others about the best way to secure our nation and our way of life.

I really think everyone needs to take a deep breath and realize that this is just a political issue; we can disagree on it and still be on the same team. On an issue a serious as this there's a need for rational, intelligent discussion of the issues and there's no room for name-calling, threats or any other immature behavior. After all, that does more to cloud the issue than it does to bring it to a conclusion.

Because, at the end of the day, no one wants to see another September 11, no one wants to see another human tragedy, it's just that some people don't think war is the best way to avert another one and, if you think about it, it's not that outrageous of a position.

So, can we have some maturity please?

The entire nation is buzzing about President Bush's upcoming plan to revitalize the economy. The media, in particular CNN, has been ranking it as his number one challenge of 2003, the democrats have already begun slamming it as being targeted at the most wealthy Americans and the only thing that's clear is that everyone wants relief and everyone is looking for Washington to bring it.

To me, this is just proof at exactly how naïve the nation has become.

One thing that both Democrats and Republicans miss, or rather, falsely assume, is that the government doesn't control the economy. In all of the bickering about who's to blame for the economic downfall (Bush blames Clinton and the Democrats blame Bush), it seems like both sides assume that the President, or at least the federal government, is a giant wizard waving a magic wand controlling the economy at will.

I'm very certain that all of the past presidents wish they had had that power, but the simple truth is that they don't, never did and never will. Anyone who believes otherwise is either a very naïve or a very wishful human being.

The plain truth is that the economy, on a national scale, is an infinitely complex system with literally millions of variables, of which government is but one. While there are things our leaders can certainly do to stimulate the economy (cut taxes, lower interest rates, etc.), if the countless other factors point south, you can rest assured the economy will be going straight down the toilet no matter what incentives your friendly politician might throw out.

In fact, most economists agree that looking at the economy on a national level is usually very misleading. It's possible for some parts of the nation to be doing well while others suffer. All a national readout of figures can do is give you a statistical average of what's going on all over the nation, an average that may or may not apply to half of the people it supposedly represents.

But it shouldn't come as a shock to most of us that the economy is on the government's mind right now. With campaigns less than a year away, most politicians know that, their job depends on the happiness of their constituents and that happiness is largely determined by how well clothed, fed and entertained they are, all variables controlled by the economy.

So, even though issues like Iraq, the War on Terrorism and North Korea have been the highlights of this four-year cycle, it shouldn't shock anyone that it could very easily end discussing the economy. Politicians know very well that, even though they don't have much control over it, if they don't fix they won't be around for another term and, at the end of the day, that's what matters most to any successful politician, their job.

It's truly as simple as that.

Imagine for a second that you had fallen asleep on Nov. 4th and just woke up today. You would have missed the Nov. 5th elections, the Republican Party's victories, the media blitz, the subsequent change of leadership in the Democratic Party and the windfall of predictions and speculations about what it all means. Basically, you would have woken up in the exact same country your lazy ass fell asleep in a week ago.

Because no matter how much the media hypes up the victories, no matter, what the GOP says it means and no matter how much finger pointing the Democrats do, this election, in the grand scheme of modern politics, means exceptionally little.

First of all, let's take a real hard look at what was actually gained and lost in this election. In the 100-member Senate, the Republicans managed to gain two seats, which in turn gave them a statistical majority with 51 seats. In the 435-member house of representatives, the Republicans gained very little and, depending on the outcomes of some elections that are too close to call, they could gain anywhere from six seats to nothing. Finally, in the various races for State governor, the Democrats were the ones to pull out ahead bringing in three seats while the Republicans actually lost control of one state house (Independents Governorships that changed hands made up the difference).

So as anyone with a calculator handy can see, this so-called Republican thrashing, sweep or trouncing, is really little more than a statistical blip on the radar. Simple math reveals that the Republicans did not gain more than 2% of anything and, in fact, it was the Democrats that took over 6% of the Governorships across the nation. Clearly, a more significant percentage.

"But wait! What about the new Republican majority in the Senate?"

What about it? Sure, the GOP might have racked up a statistical majority in the Senate, but the closest vote in recent Senate legislation was passed with a margin of well over 20. In fact, most important legislation (including many of the anti-terrorism bills) requires a 3/5 margin to pass, not a simple majority. This means, to get anything done, the Republicans are still going to have to reach across the aisle and lure Democrats to their cause.

Also, while it's completely true that if the Republicans could stick together that they would hold a majority, the simple truth is that it isn't likely to happen. With the movement toward centrism, the line between Republican and Democrat has been hopelessly blurred and any realist understands that getting 51 Senators to agree on anything, even if they're all Republicans, is a very difficult job.

Basically, if you're worried or excited about the possibilities of a GOP Senate, you should probably calm down. This isn't the first time America has made a slight shift to the right (or to the left for that matter) and history has shown us that these shifts rarely produce any real results, good or bad. In fact, the very idea of American democracy is designed to prevent radical change from happening overnight (you want radical change, move to Israel) and to bring about any long-term benefits, or long-term damage, the trend would have to continue for several more elections.

And trust me, the next four to six years is plenty of time for the pendulum to swing back the other way…

I don't smoke pot. It's something that's never had a place in my life and I've always seen drugs, even alcohol, as a potential hindrance to my goals in life. That's why I've always been very careful about where I tread, what I take and when I take it. But despite this goodie-two-shoes approach to all things potentially addictive, I'm probably one of the few human beings that's genuinely outraged that marijuana is illegal.

You see, I'm a libertarian at heart and being a libertarian means you have one simple, fundamental rule when it comes to government, "The government's job is to protect me from others, but I'm the only person who's responsible for protecting me from myself." This means that if there's no victim outside of the perpetrator, there is no crime. Period.

However, I'm also a realist and I understand that I live in a society that's hell-bent enforcing morals through laws and watching over people's shoulders to make sure they're doing what's right, even when it doesn't affect anyone else. But even under such a restrictive government, the hypocrisy of making marijuana illegal is dumbfounding and, to a libertarian such as myself, is infuriating.

First of all, marijuana as a substance is less harmful and less addictive than cigarettes, less intoxicating than alcohol and the only illegal drug that has not killed a single person in recorded history. In fact, much to my shame, some studies indicate that caffeine, my drug of choice, comes with more harmful side effects than marijuana does.

Now let's take a quick moment to contrast marijuana to each of these other, completely legal, drugs.

Cigarettes have an absolutely abominable record when it comes to public safety. Not only do 400,000 people die each year from smoking-related illnesses, but also the nicotine found in cigarettes has been tested as being the most addictive drug that's widely used, up to five times more addictive than cocaine. Meanwhile, just a few years ago, tobacco executives were swearing that nicotine wasn't addictive and that people were smoking cigarettes purely for personal enjoyment. It's a sad spectacle to say the least. However, tobacco, in all its forms, remains completely legal to anyone over the age of 18.

However, alcohol isn't doing much better. Another highly addictive substance, upwards of 50,000 people die each year from alcohol poisoning (this doesn't count drunk driving, other accidents, liver disease or kidney failure). To make matters worse, alcohol is implicated in over half of all domestic violence and rape cases, up to 2/3 of all assaults and a quarter of all suicides. Yet despite this tremendous societal impact, alcohol remains completely legal for anyone over the age of 21 who isn't operating a motor vehicle.

Caffeine, however, is much more innocent. But it too rings in as one of the most addictive substances available, ahead of PCP, and the negative health consequences of caffeine, including lost sleep, jitters and ulcers are well documented.

Compared to these three, marijuana, a drug with no physical dependency and one of the lowest overall addictiveness ratings, seems rather tame. While taking smoke into your lungs is never a good thing and some of the side effects of marijuana, including mental impairment and sexual dysfunction, are undeniable, it's no more dangerous than many over-the-counter medications. Combine that with the complete lack of a body count and marijuana becomes one of the safest things to breathe in a society surrounded by gas fumes and wet paint. Even the hardest skeptics of the drug have to admit, it's better for you than cigarettes and less of a societal problem than alcohol.

Despite this, the government has fought tooth and nail to keep marijuana illegal, including taking states that try to decriminalize the drug to court. But while the federal government ignores the obvious, nearly 750,000 people each year are arrested for mere marijuana possession costing taxpayers an estimated $10 billion. This number dwarfs the number of violent criminals arrested and most law enforcement experts agree that the "war on pot" has become nothing but a huge burden on the nation's police force.

But then comes the big question, why is it illegal in the first place? I've read about a dozen theories on the issue, but as I see it, it boils down to one critical factor, the users. The people who smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol come from all walks of life and any attempt to criminalize those two drugs would be resisted by A) powerful lobby groups and B) the wealthy and middle-class users of the products. However, pot smokers tend to be younger, less politically involved and smaller in number than any of the other groups in question. So while speaking out against cigarettes or alcohol is political suicide, it's completely safe to pick on marijuana users and, in fact, with the public crying for a "war on drugs" it's a very, very smart move.

Now, on an aside note, a lot of people have taken to calling pot a "gateway drug" to justify maintaining its criminal status. But the term "gateway drug", while it seems to implicate marijuana in causing more serious addictions, is actually a term that means very little for the simple reason that any drug can be a gateway drug. While there's a strong correlation between people who use pot and then move onto other things, a similar correlation exists for both alcohol and caffeine. The truth is, a lot of people who use marijuana never move onto harder drugs just like light drinkers don't always become raging alcoholics. In the end, it's just a convenient statistic to justify an unjustifiable law.

But there is hope. Several states and many nations are moving to decriminalize marijuana. By one estimate, 30% of the United States population lives under some form of decriminalization and in those states there's been no reported increase of marijuana use. Other states, like Nevada, are pushing legislation through to decriminalize marijuana possession despite the federal governments legal maneuvering to get the laws repealed.

What needs to happen is more political activism on the part of pot smokers. More than just protests and publicity stunts, there needs to be a serious push not just for the legalization of marijuana, but to promote the responsible use of it. Rather than simply fighting to lift the ban, there needs to be an understanding that any legalization of it is going to come with restrictions and the consensus among the current marijuana lobbyists is that the restrictions should be similar to those placed on alcohol (age, location of consumption, driving, etc.).

But most importantly, pot smokers needs to shake their image of being stupid, lazy and useless. Being politically active and promoting responsible use is one of the best ways to do that, but also important is being a productive member of the community, a law-abiding citizen (marijuana use aside) and a contributor to government both as a taxpayer and as a voter.

Perhaps then marijuana users and marijuana supporters will be able to show the people the error of the existing laws and take their case to government in a way that will earn them respect and, justice willing, a victory.

Yes, Florida has done it again. After the election controversy in 2000, spending millions on election reforms and promising endlessly to improve the quality of the voting process in the state, Florida has managed to create yet another controversy, this one perhaps worse than the first.

This time, in addition to there being a very close race for the democratic gubernatorial primary, there's reports of ballots being torn in the automatic readers, computer equipment not being installed properly, people being handed the wrong ballots, election workers not showing up and some polling stations not even opening until one in the afternoon. Even one of the candidates, Janet Reno, had to wait over one hour to cast her vote because her assigned polling station was delayed in opening due to these "technical difficulties."

I only have one question for Florida and its election officials, "How hard is it to run an election? Really?"

Let's think about this for a second, the other 49 (save Louisiana, which had dead people voting in the late 90's) states manage to hold elections every two years without a glitch. I myself have voted three times and never been confronted with a confusing ballot, a late-to-open polling station or rude/unhelpful workers (though the candidates are another issue) and I'm from South Carolina, supposedly one of the poorest and dumbest states in the nation.

I will grant that we, as a nation, have been very hard on Florida because they were the deciding factor in the last presidential election. But while the race was close and the presidency was decided by less than 1,000 votes, Florida's problems didn't exactly help instill faith in the legitimacy of our new President and when you throw in the fact that his brother is governor of the state, the cat calls of "Hail to the Thief" seem quite understandable.

But then there's this. From the looks of things, even when the nation's spotlight isn't on Florida, the election is much smaller and the results much less important, things STILL fall apart. I mean, if you can't get a simple primary election right, how am I supposed to have any confidence in your presidential results?

The truth is that I can't and as a voter I've never felt more angry and disenfranchised from the whole election process as I do right now. I'll forgive the fact we have our Presidents decided by an electoral college and not by popular vote (otherwise, Gore would be our President). I'll ignore the fact we have only two parties when most feel a four or five-party system would be more fair. But the fact some yahoos in Florida can't even count their votes right, really casts doubts on the whole idea of democracy in America.

But this whole thing also raises some pretty mind-boggling questions for the nation.

First, how can we have any faith in an electoral college when big, election-deciding states like Florida seem to have a real problem collecting votes? How do we as Americans feel about the arbitrariness that our greatest right, the right to vote, is being handled with? Finally, the big one, why hasn't our election process been brought into the 21st century?

Think about it, my computer, as slow and old as it is, has the needed processing power to tally all of the results for the entire nation. It's nothing more than simple addition. The only things that would be needed to make this happen would be a standard electronic voting system that would tally the results instantly as they are received and a nation-wide intranet that would connect counties to states and states to a central point thus allowing the results to be compiled and figured.

The advantages of this are obvious, no more "with 90% of precincts reporting", no more room for human error and the only votes that wouldn't be counted as they were sent in would be absentee ballots. Beyond that, the minutes the polls closed, you'd know who won or lost, but of course, in nation-wide elections you would withhold those results until all the polls across the nation closed down.

Would this system be expensive? Yes. Would it pose security problems? Yes. But both of these items can be overcome and given the importance of voting to our way of life and the rights we hold dear, I think the risks of not stepping forward outweigh the risks of doing so.

Because unless we do, situations like the one in Florida are going to be more and more common and it's likely further elections could be marred by controversial results and polling difficulties, two items which can so easily be avoided.

But while this is something we must do as a nation, at best, such a solution is many years down the road due to the sheer size of such a project. So in the meantime, Florida, get it right in November. Ok.

I don 't think I or the voters are asking too much of you, just what we were promised in the constitution…

When it comes to foreign policy, I don't have many rules, but one of the critical ones I do have is "If you can avoid it, don't start a fight." While I think every country, the same as every individual, has the right to defend themselves against aggression, if it is at all avoidable, it's unwise to be the aggressor.

However, that's exactly what George W. Bush and roughly fifty percent of all Americans want to do, launch a full-scale attack on Iraq in order to overthrow Saddam Hussein and they're willing to accept the heavy casualties and global outrage that will likely come from it.

Why do they want to do this? Why are they willing to sacrifice so much and turn this supposed peace-loving nation into a global bully? Well, they can't decide either.

The most commonly given reason is that Iraq is stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and is thus a threat to both the region and even the United States itself. This is no secret, we've known that since the end of the Persian Gulf War when Saddam started playing cat-and-mouse with U.N. Inspectors. That's why Iraq is currently under harsh U.N. sanctions and most Iraqi citizens are living in total squalor.

I will grant that Saddam's record with weapons of mass destruction is very poor, especially when you include the fact he gassed his own people following the Persian Gulf War after they rebelled against him. But if we're going to invade an enemy state for building and stockpiling such weapons, we can't show bias toward Iraq, we need to invade them all including North Korea, Cuba and China.

After all, North Korea's nuclear program is clearly a greater threat to the United States than Iraq's puny chemical plants. If we're going to invade anyone for developing weapons of mass destruction, it should at least be someone capable of using those weapons against us with disastrous results, not someone who can barely scrape together the knowledge and materials to build a modest stockpile of outdated chemical weapons.

The second most common reason given is that Iraq supports terror and probably had something to do with the Sept. 11 attacks.

This simply isn't true. The CIA searched very hard to find a connection between Saddam and Bin Laden, any connection at all, and it found none. Every reported meeting between an Iraqi official and an Al Qaeda one were quickly debunked and remarkably enough it seems Saddam's hands are completely clean when it comes to those attacks.

The truth is that Saddam's secular regime directly conflicts with Bin Laden's mission to create Muslim governments. The only thing the two seem to agree on is their hatred for the United States and while that's kept them from killing each other, it doesn't really inspire cooperation.

Another reason commonly given is that Saddam is a danger to his own people. That he's already used chemical warfare on them, that he is a brutal dictator and uses lethal force to squelch political dissidents.

While all of these reasons are definitely valid, all of these behaviors can be found elsewhere in the world and if America intervenes for that reason, we'll be making a historical exception as well. Think about it, we stood by when Hitler slaughtered the Jews, when Stalin massacred the Ukrainians, when Pol Pot decimated Cambodia and when Xiaoping butchered protesters in China.

Suddenly Saddam's behavior falls into focus, if someone reaches for this when justifying an attack on Iraq, they've officially hit the bottom of the excuse barrel. Not only have we ignored worse in the past, but we're also ignoring worse now. There are no American plans to invade China or North Korea and even our greatest ally in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, which is known for its harsh Islamic law.

The best sincere reason that can be given for attacking Iraq is "We don't like them and they don't like us." The truth is that they pose little threat to the United States and with the sizable United States force in Saudi Arabia, little threat to the region.

Saddam knows what happens when he invades another country unprovoked, he watches his army get routed and his air force destroyed before they can get off the ground. He knows that he's lucky to have survived his first battle with the United States and will do what he can to avoid another while getting his way as much as possible, even if it means starving his own people.

To make matters worse for the war hawks, our strongest European allies, including the United Kingdom and France, are very unsure about this attack both in its principle and its chances of success. Tony Blair, who first gave resounding support for the attack, has since wavered and many in the British parliament have already openly condemned it. Even legislators on our own Capitol Hill are very skeptical about this attack with many wondering what has gotten into our President.

Even Bush himself isn't quite sure what to do. Every week he seems to waver on the issue going frequently from calling the attack "imminent" to wondering if Americans "are ready for the casualties." He's gone on the record as saying that "there's no immediate plans" to attack Iraq, even though the New York Times has already uncovered and printed tactical plans for just such an invasion.

It really makes you wonder about the competency of our leadership.

But the bottom line is that with our allies unsure, Congress torn, the people divided and even the President uneasy, why are we even considering such a dangerous and costly action? There is no proof that Iraq is any threat to the United States or even a significant threat to the region and it's simply not worth incurring the wrath of the Arab world, the distrust of our allies and the heavy loss of life to engage in an offensive that no one can explain and almost no one is sure about.

Perhaps it's time for us as a nation to step back and think about what we're doing. Before we risk thousands of lives and forcing America to stand alone in the world, we should at least take a moment to think about what we hope to gain.

Something that I think most people will agree simply isn't worth the potential price…

Every once in a while, I get one right.

A study conducted by University of Connecticut psychology professor found the anti-depressant drugs (Prozac, Paxil, etc.) work only marginally better than a placebo in treating depression. The drugs, designed to correct chemical imbalances in the brain, did have a high number of successes in treating those who took it, but the number was almost equal to those who took the placebo.

While the difference was statistically significant, the narrow margin has caused many to wonder of these miracle drugs, now used to treat everything from PMS to general anxiety, are really that effective at all, something that should have been asked years ago.

You see, as a society we've begun doping ourselves to cure our blues without pondering if it was the right approach. After all, the pill is the scientific method of curing everything and that blind faith in physical medicine caused us to overlook one critical fact, that these drugs were designed to treat people with a chemical imbalance in the brain while most people with depression have an imbalance in their lives.

While some people are indeed depressed due to biological factors, I'd venture that the number is much lower than most would have you believe. Simply put, most people who are depressed are depressed for a damn good reason and giving them a pill to fix a chemical imbalance that isn't there will do nothing but bring on nasty side effects.

But this hasn't stopped psychiatrists across the world from having a blind faith in the abilities of these drugs. If you go into a psychiatrist office today with a case of depression, most likely, one of the first things he/she will do is give you a prescription, regardless of your reasons for being there. It doesn't matter if you lost your job, your mother died or if you're getting beat up everyday at school, Prozac is the miracle solution and if that doesn't work try Zoloft or Paxil, one of them has to work.

But the fact is, they don't. All they do in most cases is turn smart, intelligent people into zombies. These drugs strip away peoples natural defenses at a time in which they need all of their faculties to survive all the while doing nothing to address the real problem.

Now I don't think psychiatrists are bad people for doing this. The allure of a miracle cure for a disease as complicated and as devastating as depression is very great. But the fact is that there is no miracle cure and even the most gung-ho about the power of these pills has come to realize that they aren't completely effective.

I'm also not about to say that there isn't a place for these pills in modern medicine. They clearly do their job well and in some cases are quite useful. But while I'm no medical expert, they should be used as a last resort, something to try when traditional therapy has failed. They should never be used to treat depression when the cause hasn't been established, even if it's a part of the double-barrel approach (medicine and therapy) that many psychiatrists tout.

Prescribing medicine without good cause, especially medicine that alters the mind, is not just a waste of money, but potentially dangerous. I wouldn't tell anyone to have open-heart surgery just because they have chest pains (it could be gas after all) I'd at least want to check their pulse before tinkering with their insides and such is the case with these drugs.

So I hope that psychiatrists take this study to heart. The effectiveness of these pills have for a long time been in serious doubt and this study only furthers it. There are so many variables at play when it comes to depression and without addressing the right one or the right combination thereof, you're never going to solve anything. If doctors continue blindly prescribing these pills, they'll find themselves doing more harm than good for a majority of patients and many of those lost souls, already suffering from a terrible disease, can't afford to take another hit.

It's time for us as a society to take another look at the way we use the pills and think long and hard about what we hope to accomplish with them. We need to remember that one man's salvation is another's damnation and that without carefully considering what we're doing, we could be condemning those who need help to a fate far worse than the one they started with.

It's a brutal truth, but one we need to accept.

When the Marines in Afghanistan took custody of John Walker, they knew they had a lot more than just another POW; they had a media event. As an American fighting for the Taliban, he has become the source of not only a lot of media attention, but also controversy.

Essentially, two choruses have erupted, one calling for us to spare the young Walker and another demanding his head on a platter. One group calls him a "misguided youth," the other calls him a "traitor to the nation" and both are demanding justice.

But the solution is painfully simple; let the legal system handle it.

You see, the very point of a legal system is to create a definition of right vs. wrong for a group of people and establish punishments for offenses. Our legal system has been molded over hundreds of years to do exactly that and, while definitely flawed, is a system created by this nation to deal with questions of what is and is not a crime.

But does this mean that John Walker, a "good kid" from California, could possibly be executed for the crime of high treason? Of course. But then again thousands of "good kids" are put in prison each day and hundreds are sentenced to die each year without the world or the media lifting an eyebrow.

Could this also mean that Mr. Walker, a "murder and a traitor," could be treated as just another POW and outright released when the conflict is over? Of course. But once again, murders and rapists get set free everyday on technicalities and no one cares.

The fact is that it's easy to let the justice system go about making it's mistakes and passing judgment on countless lives when the defendants are nameless and faceless. But we all know Mr. Walker's name and we have all seen his face on the news. It now hits home, like it or not. No matter if you're "Free Walker" or "Kill Walker" the only reason you probably care is because of how high profile his case is.

So if we're going to go easy or hard on him; we need to change the law to do so. That way, we can re-apply the law to others who come later. After all, justice is blind and we are all supposed to be equal on her scales. If we make an exception for Mr. Walker and don't apply it to everyone else, then we crack the very foundation of our legal system and risk toppling our entire concept of justice.

For example, if you think we should go easy on him because "he was raised better than that" or that "he got mixed up in the wrong crowd," then every teen who does a drive-by shooting deserves to get off easy. The only thing he has to prove is that his mother told him otherwise and he just happened to fall in with the local gang.

Also, if you think we should throw a heavier book at him because he "joined an organization that is against everything America stands for," then everyone who joins an organization that doesn't like America, no matter how peaceful they are, should be convicted of a crime or have their offenses punished more sternly.

I can't think of a single reason to make an exception for John Walker that I am willing to apply to the rest of the nation. If the rules some seek to change for him were changed for all, then the entire nation would be thrown into chaos and the very reason this country came into being will be tossed out the window.

So let's kick back collectively and let the system that is in place deal with Mr. Walker. It may take a long time to get results and many people may not appreciate the outcome. But it's the system we've designed and no matter what you think about it, we have to let it do its job.

In a free a free country equal protection under the law isn't just a right, but also an obligation. And it's an obligation that we owe Mr. John Walker whether we like it or not.