CAMPAIGN ADS

As the car made it's way to our first destination I turned on the radio.
"What," challenged Marchell. "No small talk?"
Sorry," I replied. "Monitering human communications channels comes with the territory. I like to keep informed. Besides, it's what they pay me for."
"Pay? What do you use for money anyways?"
"Generally we use wimpet fur," I said, imagining myself to be quite droll. "It's quite rare, wimpets only growing on a world called Fossli. We measure it by the gram for exchange."
Marchell curled her lip and gave one of those "You're hopeless" little shakes of her head.
"Really," I persisred. "It makes shopping quite an experience. Go to the store, lug your wimper fur, go to the net store, lug your wimpet fur..."
She laughed weakly. "A wampum based space faring society. Right."
The music terminted on the radio. On came a political ad. A Democrat bashed a Republican.implying, if I understood it correctky, that the man's third cousin on his mother's side (twice removed) had once been involved in mail fraud, selling defective matches to Eskimos..
"Huh?" I grunted. "What does that have to do with an election?"
Immediately another ad followed, this time a Republican came on accusing his Democratic foe of UnAmerican practices. Seems he had bought some socks and underwear mailorder that proved to have been made in Pakistan(a place where many want to kill Americans, but not until after selling them unmentionables.), and thus had cost 50,000 hard working textile unionists their jobs.
I reiterated, "Huh? That has nothing to do with issues. how is this supposed to get votes."
"Oh, the ads have nothing to do with issues," began Marchell. "Everyone knows the issues. No one really knows what to do about them. The candidates don't know what to do to about them. and besides, both parties just want to suck as much money out of the people and into their control for promoting their own social agenda. Everyone knows that. So no one bothers running ads on issues. That would immediately label the guy as someone not to be trusted. So instead, they engage in mudslinging and schollyard name calling. "She paused a second. "I think they think they are being entertaining. Anyways, over the last decade or so the politicians have been raising it up to an art form. I think they have an awards show slated for November, sort of like the Oscars.."
Now it was my turn to shake my head. "Heck of a way to run a country."
"No one's running it,"Marchell corrected. "Everyone just keeps pulling in different directions. Soon I expect it will end up being pulled apart at the seams. "
Thankfully we now were treated to an ad for deodorizing foot powder and a handy dandy cream for smearing on your forehead should you get a headache. Then the music returned, introduced by The Radio Personality, who dutifully ran his schtick over the first twelve bars or so of the song.
By then we were reaching our destination on West 130th. Stovski's twenty three and a half hour deli.....