Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Little People, Little Stuff, Symbols, and Such

"Little people" do not change minds all that much. What they achieve when it comes to any changing is to be called little.

Let’s take the olden times when a husband used to call his mate “Little Woman”; Ha ha! Well, I bet that caused the feminist movement or men who got cut up by women. In the same vein, when politicians want to make a point, they go to the “little people”; my guess is those politicians do not change a whole lot of minds either.

One of those little people in the news, who caused quite a heated agitation, is Joe the Plumber. Don’t tell me if you hear “Joe the plumber” again, you’ll scream. Okay, then, let’s scream together.

Still, in this presidential campaign, Joe the Plumber took the cake, and no matter how much I try, I cannot--will not--erase that epithet off my mind. Joe the Plumber--who is not a plumber and who cannot come up with cash to pay his taxes, let alone start a business--is the surprise star of 2008 elections. We might as well call this election Joe the Plumber election, like the way we are naming the hurricanes.

Hurricanes are not alien to me, and neither are botched up elections, since I live in Florida.

In this hurricane of an election, this Joe asked the first-place candidate if he believed in the American dream. Hmmmm! This makes me think. .. Could this Joe be a mole? I mean the kind that hides under the soil or some kind of façade, sort of like the person CIA calls a mole.

Judging from the one who used his name so many times and made him a symbol of the little man, I might not be too far off, although I may be paranoid. Then, paranoia has its pluses. It makes some people think. Moreover, it makes little people not stay little anymore. Then, to top it all, it makes the runner-ups yell at reporters, “Why the hell are you going after Joe the Plumber?” thinking it will make the one who asks this question matter more than the reporters’ snickering.

I have to snicker, too, if not at anybody, at myself, to tell the truth, because I shall never forget Joe the Plumber. He has been one of the rare shocks of my debate-listening life. He has impressed me so much that I may be suffering from a disease a columnist called, “Joe the Plumber Derangement Syndrome.”

Unfortunately, this disease is incurable. Besides, Joe the Plumber as a symbol is the kind of joke that makes me laugh until I have tears in my eyes, and then, my laughter shape-shifts into down-to earth weeping.