I had to drop a check off at the brokerage so we took in an early lunch at our favorite cafe. I often order smoked salmon benedict there, and did this time.
The cute young server asked me if I wanted my salmon "medium". I thought I did not hear correctly through the mask. She repeated it. I looked confused and then explained the salmon was smoked, so it wasn't cooked. She said "Oh, sorry, I'm fairly new here and still learning." No kidding.
Well, after she left the wife went on a RANT about how the cute young thing was VOTING. I explained to the wife some of the history in the US with things like literacy tests and voting and how a fair number of illiterate people vote legally. They get a card with the boxes in the right places and vote accordingly. The wife was ... um, well, not very happy.
Later two men sit down at a table ten feet away, fine, but one of them is wearing a fully on respirator. OK, fine, he's being careful, but he's DINING in an outdoor cafe, and takes it off of course. Why wear a respirator walking down the sidewalk and then dine at an outdoor cafe?
Maybe we should have a system where "we" don't vote directly for President, we vote for someone to represent us who actually knows a bit, can read, doesn't wear a respirator, and knows that smoked salmon won't be cooked in the kitchen. The, later, THEY could vote for President, say mid-December.
So this got me thinking about a couple things.
The first: This salmon
This feels, maybe a matter of experience or class or something else. I know what lox are, but didn't know how combustable combines were until reading a twitter thread (the answer is very). It's not ideal, but that might be experience. If she's a 19-year-old from Jacksonville, Ga., who knows how many restaurants have salmon at all, let along smoked. (I don't think I'm often asked if I want rare salmon, either)
And we could change it around and a New Yorker is wondering why a Georgian who doesn't know about salmon should vote, it takes on a different tone, and drops into a different part of the culture war. Anyway, we as a society decide that inexperienced people or people with bad judgment are considered adults. (the literacy tests, maybe now would be fine, though obviously the history is ugly as all get-out)
As for the second, system where we don't vote directly. It's interesting because parts of it already exist, even in some backwards ways. We have electors, who in theory are a buffer, though there would be hell to pay if they acted as such. We also have parties that to a degree play a large role in picking who we can realistically vote for. And if we voted for smart folks who then voted, we'd just get a kind of amplified version party politics.
You could go parliament style, though if it's geography-based, you end up with weird geographic issues unless it's static (like our states) or underhanded tricks. If it's party based, you end up with something like Israel, which is pure in a way, but also recycles pols in an absurd way.
I wish there was a way to structure in good intentions and ability to carry them
through, but I don't think there is.
