Instant Gratification

It's been almost a month since my fiftiest post, and I was feeling lazy today. Not really lazy, as I sit around and read up on the coming elections, chilling in my room before I head up to lunch on the first day back from break, which was wonderful. I think that October break might be my favorite of all the breaks, since both of mine thus far have been so wonderfully relaxing.

Anyway, I was reading an interview with President Bush where he is talking about his commitment to stick to his strategy for Iraq, because it is an ideological struggle that will take time to sort out. He sais that "Ideological struggles take time. We live in a world in which there should be, there needs to be, instant success... things must happen rapidly."*

This is totally a reflection of what either Neil Postman or Todd Gitlin would say, especially as Bush goes onto say that he hings that the reason for this need for speed is related to having too many TV channels, where everything is solved in an hour, and it only takes an hour if it can't possibly be done in half of one.

I hate TV. We hsould all be more patient, more willing to struggle with tough ideas, not only in the political realm but also in our personal lives. Maybe I'm just sympathetic to this right now because of my laid back semester that I'm in, but still. Why don't we take the time to ourselves to get to know ourselves, what we think about ourselves, and what we think about the world?