There’s no accounting for taste; why would people pay for political time?

I spend a lot of my work time associating with political-type people, what with trying to learn more about their ways so I can write more intelligently about them.

It doesn’t mean I necessarily want to associate with them on my free time. Which is why I find it confounding to think that certain people are willing to pay significant sums of their own money in order to be with them.

PERSONALLY, I’D JUST as soon keep my cash, or try to find some worthy charitable cause to donate to, rather than give it to a political person’s campaign fund.

Because that is what ultimately becomes of the money spent in ways such as reported on recently by the Washington Post. It seems that when singer Taylor Swift appears in concert in Washington in July, there are going to be several members of Congress in attendance.

Including Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., of our very own state’s delegation. Although she’s not a Chicago-area type, she’s from the Quad Cities along the Mississippi River.

What caught the Post’s attention, and later the Chicago Sun-Times’, is that those members of Congress have blocks of tickets that they’re selling to people who want to go to the concert with them.

I’M SURE CHERI Bustos is a nice person. But I can’t say that the idea of spending an evening with her at a concert with anyone is my idea of a thrilling experience.

Especially since the going rate seems to be $2,500 per ticket. That’s a lot of cash. There has to be more practical things the money could be used on.

Although the Post points out that Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, is offering tickets for $1,500 each, or $2,500 for a pair so you can bring a friend who can forevermore testify to the fact that you spent the night with Stivers while listening to Swift sing!

The very thought gives me some mental shivers. It’s not my idea of a good time. I just don’t comprehend the idea that we’re supposed to spend a lot of money so we can have a pretend personal experience with one of these political people.

WOULD THESE ELECTED officials even give us a second glance if we weren’t opening up our checkbooks (or offering up our credit card numbers) to make a donation to the funds that will pay for their re-election bids in the future?

I suppose they would if it were actually Election Day and they saw us within proximity of a polling place where we could go to actually cast a ballot on their behalf!

Otherwise, all of this just comes across to me as a phony attempt to create an experience.

If I were going to a Taylor Swift concert (and let it be known that I have never had any desire to do so), I think I’d rather go with people whom I really know and for whom a shared experience would mean something.

I JUST DON’T get the appeal of this event. It almost comes across as a bit too creepy, which is sort of how I remember a Chicago White Sox game I once attended more than a decade ago.

It was a mid-week day game on a day I had off from work, and I wound up discovering a large gathering of political people who had the same thought as I did. They were sitting one section away from me.

I still remember the site of a legislative chief of staff in a concessions stand line waiting to buy a round of beers for the group, and former Illinois Senate President Phil Rock wandering around the stands in mid-game. Then at game’s end while waiting in a restroom line to relieve myself, I happened to look up and see that I was sharing that experience with none other than the high-and-mighty powerful Speaker of the Illinois House himself.

If nothing else, I’d pay good money if I could forget that image!

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My ‘isolation’ is over; it's great to be back in touch again w/ the masses even if much of their talk is trash

You don’t know how grateful I feel to be able to post this commentary and reconnect with the few of you who have nothing better to do than check out this weblog.

If you were reading it, you’d notice there were no updates for Tuesday or Wednesday. It’s not that I couldn’t have come up with issues to rant and rage about.

IT’S THAT I experienced a level of technical difficulties that made it complicated to try to comment to the point where I figured it wasn’t worth the while. So I’m back, and now more fully appreciate how just much we as a society have become tied in to our communications technology.

I’m trying to figure out whether that is a plus or a minus.

What happened was that my cellphone developed technical difficulties with its connections. For the past couple of days, it was just a piece of junk that couldn’t do anything other than tell me what time it was.

My ability to make phone calls on it conked out during the weekend, and my ability to receive and send e-mail messages (along with access anything on the Internet) died when I woke up Monday morning.

IT WASN’T UNTIL Wednesday morning that I was able to work out the kinks of the system and get my device fully restored to all the little services it provides that I apparently have become attached to.

Now there was one plus to my situation; I never lost access to the land line telephone at home. But for the past couple of days, that was my sole connection to the outside world.

Suddenly, I had to recall exactly what my home telephone number was, and I have to admit it took me a minute or so to do that. I’ve become too accustomed to thinking in terms of my smart phone number when I give out a contact for myself.

The inability to get on the Internet from home made it impossible for me to easily post new commentary here. Although I suppose I could have written it, stored the copy on the hard drive of this computer I’m now using, then send it all out when full service was restored.

ALTHOUGH I DOUBT anybody would care about my pre-State of the Union thoughts in this post-State time period. So I’ll spare you.

Or I could have traveled to my local public library and used one of their computers to file copy. Although that would have been a hassle, and I must admit to feeling a little more compassion for those individuals who are in situations where they have to rely on public computers in order to take care of any personal business.

I must admit that Tuesday was a particularly nerve-wracking period because the paranoid portion of my personality was starting to wonder if this lack of contact was going to stretch out indefinitely. I was wondering if I’d ever get restored, or if I was going to have to seriously adapt my daily routine.

As it turned out, I was at a restaurant Wednesday morning with my brother having breakfast when the quirks got worked out. It was something of a relief to “refresh” my cellphone and see a flood of e-mail messages come in – some 95 on my personal e-mail account and 46 on the g-mail account whose address is published on this weblog.

ALTHOUGH I MUST confess to realizing how little I had actually missed – I’d say I deleted about 90 percent of the messages unread because they were just too obsolete.

So all those political operatives who sent me their statements reacting to the State of the Union Address Tuesday night will have to learn that their attempt to influence my thoughts were unsuccessful.

I am not the least bit dizzy from their political spin, although I’m sure they will continue to try to influence me on future issues with their rhetorical junk.

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