Drama and Democracy

First, the drama.

Last night, I was watching "Monster House" on the Discovery Channel. You should watch that and "American Chopper" at least once in your life.

"Monster House" is all about remodeling a person's house in a larger-than-life way. Teams of builders are selected to complete a mission in less than a week's time and if they get everything done, the team receives expensive tool kits as a prize. It's pretty sweet. Last night the team was a set of design undergrads remodeling a loft. During the show, however, I was totally stumped by a certain member of the team who happened to be a total jackass. Every time the host, Steve (a contractor himself, with years of experience), made a helpful suggestion about how to finish a project correctly the first time (these folks had made a lot of "measure twice, cut once" mistakes), this one guy said, "You know, I just think that's the drama way to do things."

Does anyone know what the hell that means? I mean really. I will accept comments that may be able to expound on this jackass' behavior or shed light on the phrase.

Onto democracy.

I find democracy is something many of us are missing these days. The word gets bandied about, but we don't get much hands-on experience.

Ralph Nader, a guy who more people should have had the chance to vote for last November, has a new website out, called Democracy Rising. It's a good way to get facts and info about the war in Iraq. Some examples:

1) Was the election that recently happened at all democratic?

2) Is it really so democratic that craploads of our tax dollars that could be spent on schools and jobs are sent overseas to kill civilians?

The site deserves visiting and spreading.