Triumph of the Zombies

All You Need is A Beating Heart … This morning, before we left for New York, there were at least 20 big trucks parked around the square in front of our building in Baltimore. Crews dressed in black unloaded boxes, wires, booms and derricks… filling up the sidewalks with equipment of all sorts.
‘What’s going on?’ we asked at the office.
‘They’re filming that TV show House of Cards. It’s supposed to take place in Washington. But this looks like Washington. And it’s much cheaper and easier to film here.’
The characters on the show – politicians, journalists and Washington fixers and Capitol Hill apparatchiks – are unscrupulous, opportunistic, merciless, murderous and nasty. We had to stop watching; it was too much like real life. Except that most of the people who play these parts in real life are not nearly as clever, bold or attractive.
When we were 10 years old our teacher told us that any one of us could grow up to become president. We looked around the room and wondered. But now, seeing who gets elected, we believe she was right.
No impediment – moral or intellectual – is such a handicap that it prevents getting elected. No character failing, no matter how grave, stands in the way of the Capitol or the State House. No lack of charm, intelligence or humor prevents a successful career in politics.
It was remarked of Hubert Humphrey that the only thing standing between him and the presidency was a heartbeat. But a beating heart is the only real requirement, too.
Of course, that’s also the only requirement for voting …

Fog thy mirror … good, you can vote and you’ll get a NINJA loan too …
(Photo via antikleidi.com)

This post was published at Acting-Man on November 7, 2014.