Have you had enough politics for a while?

Well, you better brace yourself because the coming election is going to cause an onslaught of news before, during and after as politicians and reporters all want to have their say. Luckily, it is getting milder out, so at least you can escape the news and your electronic devices for a bit. You can go for a nice long walk and watch the birds return to the North.

Some people talk very little, or not at all, for long periods of time while others talk a lot. They start when they get up in the morning and continue until they go to bed at night, so they talk for hours every day. Some people chatter, babble, prattle, gossip, blither, blather, slander, mumble and grumble. Some yell, holler, chant, sing, rant and rave, chew the fat, or go to sporting events to shout, hurl insults or cheer. Humans can be very noisy and thus there are a lot of words to describe making noises that resemble speech. There are a number of jobs and professions that require a lot of talking: preachers, teachers, sales people, receptionists and lawyers, to name a few.

Now, imagine that you could go back in time to when humans first learned how to speak in coherent sentences. What do you suppose they talked about? A lot of it was probably about food and what to have for dinner. When they were out foraging, they would talk among themselves as to whether they should go right or left. I assume at night when they were sitting around a campfire, they probably told stories, some of which they made up. A good storyteller would entertain others and help pass the hours.

Then when they settled into permanent or semi-permanent colonies, they probably talked about politics a little and decided who oversaw what. It wasnSA国际影视传媒檛 long before the profession of oration started, and people started having political and philosophical discussions and debates. Villages, towns and cities would have a town square or marketplace where people could go and catch up on the latest gossip and news. When people learned to read and write, some places even had news mongers. In those days, there were all sorts of mongers. News mongers would write out the news on sheets, hang them up in his or her stall and charge people to read them. This was before the printing press had been invented.

Some communities had town criers, who would walk around town shouting out the important news. SA国际影视传媒淗ear ye, hear ye, the weather is fine and tomorrow your taxes are due.SA国际影视传媒� That sort of thing. In a way, the town criers have become todaySA国际影视传媒檚 reporters or bloggers.

As cities got bigger, politics got going as good orators would try to convince the rulers that certain things needed to be done. Then when parliament came along, political debating started big time. So, in many ways, a politician is a person who is a good talker and can convince people to vote for them.

Good orators and con artists have something in common. To be good at it you must believe in what you say and talk with enthusiasm to convince other people to believe what you say is true. So, a good con artist believes what they say. It must be true because they said it. In a way, they need to con themselves so they can con others.

In the brave new world that humans are creating, we now have electronic machines that talk, and they will soon be better at it than most people are. They will have artificial intelligence to write the scripts. Now all we have to do is create a universal fact checker to ensure that the machines are as honest and truthful as possible.

Sometimes I think I would rather just watch the birds building their nests. They seem to have figured out a way to solve their own housing problems and they do it every year.