The Non-Obama

The more I read about Bobby Jindal the more I think the tag line" The Next Obama" is so false...
check out his policies and voting record here and you'll see what I mean.

On a different note, that of technology and the media, I found this article on NPR today about "media ecology"--how our lives are basically run by the media mania that surrounds us. In case you don't have time to go to the article heres an interesting tidbit:
"For example, we feel swamped by how much information is instantly available on the front page of The New York Times or on NPR.org. But Berreby notes that a tribal African who hunted to survive would be swamped by information when seeing a wildebeest in a field: Male or female? Alone? Wind direction? Predators nearby? What kind of trees in the distant forest? None of this data is mediated, trivial or distant. We have (had?) a lot of Darwinian hard-wiring to process that kind of data.
That isn't true of media information: It doesn't engage all the senses. It is all crafted by humans, much of it deliberately intended to sell or market or be addictive — or get our attention. It is harder to filter this information than unmediated information, harder to attend to only the important. "We aren't overwhelmed by information," Berreby said. "We're overwhelmed by information anxiety."

I know I definitly feel overwhelemed and anxious when looking at certain news websites or any website really that has too much stuff! Yes, if we have an hour of free browsing time it's fine, but who really does have that time? So--the question then is: what does this mean for Jindal and the future of campaigns with media? While most Americans soak up all the technology (youtube, facebook, myspace, twittering, comedy central ...) I think many are certainly feeling overwhelemed as the article says. When it gets to be too much, what do you do? Unplug from it all!

So what would happen if we just unplugged? Where would our main source of news come from? Well, the daily papers and journals I suppose that you could subscribe to or pick up at the library. Word-of- mouth for sure--nothing spreads faster, but then theres the truth factor with that. Perhaps radio, which is free of visual stimuli. There are still other sources to go to, but when it comes down to it if you want to be up to the minute on what is going on, you'll find the best media outlet. However, Jindal and any future candidate need to realize that too much media might not be a good idea.
On a side note, I think one plus for The Atlantic is that their website isn't very cluttered. It's just enough and has a nice visual appeal.