One of the most direct ways to become informed on each of the remaining two (major) candidates’ views, is to listen to their own words. This is fairly easy as most of their important speeches (and some not so important ones!) are covered live. When one of the candidates gives an especially poignant speech that is well received by the public and the media, they are roundly praised. Herein lies my question- should we be showering the candidates with praise, or their speechwriters?

I can of course completely understand the need for the candidates to have speechwriters. They are just far too busy to write the many speeches they are required to give, especially when running for office. And naturally they have some amount of input into what goes into a speech, as well as (hopefully) getting the opportunity to review the speech before they give it. Nonetheless, it strikes me as being a little odd that we give so much credit for a great speech to the candidate, when in fact an individual or individuals that we never get to hear are the authors of the speech.

Even a master orator, like Barack Obama, has a team of speechwriters. I have heard him speak live, and I will say that he is indeed an incredible speaker. But in some ways, should I be calling him an incredible speaker, or an incredible actor? I have similarly heard John McCain speak live, and should I be calling him an incredible speaker, or an incredible actor?

Actors give great performances, or at least at times they do. Are John McCain and Barack Obama delivering performances as well?

I don’t want to take anything away from either candidate. I simply want to question who it is that should be recognized when a candidate delivers (performs?!) a great speech. Aren’t the candidates themselves the first ones to criticize the phrasing of a speech when they encounter a negative reaction to something they have said? We certainly don’t hear them praise their speechwriters when they encounter a positive reaction to something they have said. A funny breed, those politicians, huh?

Be it late at night, or on the weekend, there is a constant pressure to check our emails, to stay tuned in, to make sure we aren’t missing anything. I have been to movies, to dinners, to coffee, and everywhere I turn, the site is a similar one. People taking away from their interactions with others to fiddle with their Blackberries. My question then is WHY? I just don’t get it. Maybe that’s because I don’t have one myself, maybe it’s because I didn’t even have a cell phone until 2004 (seriously, I’m not lying!). Whatever the reason may be, I just don’t get it.

When I am out and about, I don’t need, and in fact I don’t want to check my email, surf the Internet, or Google chat. I want to enjoy attempting to live in the moment, which is already hard enough for me to do without another added distraction. I know the counter argument is that you can still enjoy what you are doing, and that may be true. But, how about for those around us? To the people we are spending time with? Are they still able to enjoy our company, when we are busy trying to multi-task: perhaps having a conversation, while writing an email, while waiting for yet another email. What would happen if we just put our Blackberries away and simply enjoyed being free from our email and the Internet? In most cases nothing would happen! What happened a few years ago, when most of us didn’t have them…

And it’s not just in our personal lives where the Blackberry phenomenon has taken hold. Over the past few months, I was in countless meetings where most of the people in the room were busy doing something on their Blackberries. Most likely, they were writing work emails (though you never know, seems like having a Blackberry provides an easy cover to do some browsing of the Internet, some on-line shopping, some chatting with friends- can’t you just see the Seinfeld episode here? just picture the trouble George would have gotten himself into with a Blackberry during meetings). Everyone is in their own world, instead of paying attention to the actual meeting. Result: long, drawn-out meetings, where not much gets accomplished (you could argue that this happens at most meetings anyway!).

To be fair, I have also been on the positive end of a Blackberry. When it comes to providing directions or the answer to a friendly (or not so friendly) wager, they are great!

Isn’t there the possibility, though, that we might be better off without them? At least when we are with others in our free time? Or is this to be our curse- never being able to unplug from the virtual world, and forgetting what human interactions without a mini-computer in our pocket are all about?