BSO

BSO

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Forbidden Topic

Off Limits



One of the often stated virtues of the Obama Administration is its willingness to use New Media to interact with the public. In the aftermath of last week's State of the Union Address, YouTube invited their viewers to send in videos asking the President a question, the best of which would actually be presented to Obama at a later date and which he would answer.

Sounds like a high-tech public meeting and exercise in good government, right? However, a funny thing happened on the way to picking the questions - it turned out that the most often submitted question for the President involved the legalization of marijuana! Furthermore, instead of including a marijuana question among those presented to Obama, all of the pot inquiries were rejected by YouTube.

Here were the final votes and top five question topics that were sent to YouTube:

Marijuana Legalization - 2,406 questions, 195,198 votes

Jobs and Economy - 656 questions, 109,265 votes

Foreign Policy - 1,170 questions, 69,329 votes

Health Care - 883 questions, 66,329 votes

Education - 898 questions, 49,784 votes

That proved to be a disillusioning experience for some of the participants, as revealed by this citizen's lament:



Meanwhile, pot smokers are not the only one's growing disillusioned with Obama:



Odds and Ends

Coakley backer.



Brown in the snow.



At the grave of Jay Libardi.



View from the gazebo at Hillcrest Cemetery in Springfield.



The guy next to me in Amherst's Black Sheep today was getting arty.



Today's Music Video

Beautiful version.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess the only transparency in the obama administration is the public's ability to see through the smoke and mirrors. He talks the talk, but it's all show and no go when it comes time to walk the walk!

Mary E.Carey said...

Wow, I don't think I ever saw Jay Libardi's beautiful memorial before. Is it new?

Tom said...

No, not new but in the past I've shown only the ground marker with the Pink Floyd lyric on it.

http://tommydevine.blogspot.com/2007/05/jay.html