o captain, my captain...

"thanks for pointing that out, captain obvious"
i forget who first said that phrase to me but it was a long time ago and i remember thinking it was very silly — just a pointless and irritating thing to say. however, i pondering things lately, i began to wonder if there isn't some merit in the concept, after all. then i started to think that perhaps a good many of us are completely missing what such a phrase has to offer. furthermore, i was dumbstruck to conclude, quelle mockery those of us who use the phrase from time to time (i've admitted nothing) captain obvious is making of us! let us first consider when its use might be appropriate:

to something like
"if you drop that ball it will fall due to the principle of gravity" one could certainly reply with a "thank you, captain obvious" there; sort of an indignant way to say, "i am already aware of this, and why does it matter?"

there is also the seriously self-evident context
"you're soaking wet" (said to someone who just stepped from a swimming pool). sure, works here, indicating a sort of inherent redundancy: "why are you vocalizing something we all know to be true because we can see with our own eyes?"

then there is the more severe are-you-a-total-moron use
"'there' and 'their' sound the same but they mean different things!" used after this kind of comment, "captain obvious" is particularly biting and really just means, "duh."

ok, now that we've looked at the way the phrase functions on a practical level, one can see that it's basically not a nice thing to say. in fact, it actually cannot stand independent of sarcasm. thus, anyone who uses such a phrase is — said simply — putting someone down while asserting their own knowledge or general intelligence.

my point, then, (and you were starting to doubt that i had one) is this: poor capt o has gotten a real bad rap. indeed, i fear he has been sorely misjudged. we are quick to write him off as silly, and if we do give him any actual thought (of which he, like anyone else, is certainly worthy), we inevitably conclude that he's just plain obnoxious. we have come to associate his name with disdain, pretention, arrogance, and insult. and yet, at the very same time, while we assert all this knowledge and pompousness using captain o as a vehicle for our dirty work, we are breeding the very opposite: ignorance. indeed, we have done captain obvious a grave disservice and i believe the only obvious thing about the whole thing is that some credit should be given where credit is due.

therefore, i challenge you to take another look at our misunderstood friend.

what important information, for example, might the captain have to impart if we simply drop our intense — and most unreasonable bias — for a second and just pay attention?

to clarify: granted, most of us know that if we drop a ball it will fall to the groud because of gravity, but does that really warrant taking the captain's name in vain? doesn't bringing him into it assume a certain piece of knowledge and then promptly dismiss it as not requiring any thought because it's so painfully — yes, you know it — obvious? interesting phenomenon, that: things becoming so "true" that we just assume they always were and that everyone else a) believes it to be true as well and b) knows why it's true, just like we do. consider: the world is round, right? of course. but how was that proven? because lest we forget that it was not all that long ago that everyone was positive that the world was flat. perhaps obvious, then, is the wrong word. or this: the moon generates light and shines at us at night right? a given. but is it the moon shining or is it reflecting light off the sun? oh, yeah, that. even: america is the greatest nation in the world...the very definiton of "superpower" — technological powerhouse, hood of social progress, crusader of all things noble. well obviously. [pause. wait for it, wait for it...] exactly why is that again? oh. try asking someone if they'd mind trying explaining marriage to a 5 year-old: i'd bet you my laundry quarters you'll get something along the lines of, "when two people become husband and wife." but it doesn't actually have to be a husband and a wife, per se, does it? in fact, for us supercool progressive americans, that's a very limiting and discriminatory statement. indeed, complications arise around all these so-called givens. perhaps not everything is so (and now i hesitate to use the word) obvious after all.

yes, poor, unfortunate, misunderstood captain obvious.

isn't it funny how after you notice something for the first time or somehow get something ingrained in your head, it is suddenly omnipresent and instantly profound? it's like our brain is programmed to accept and process only the things that we understand (or that we think we understand, anyway). of course it seems more to us like the world is conspiring against us at every possible opportunity to hit us over the head with whatever it is we've realized. (ex-boyfriend had a lucky number that i swear — I SWEAR — now chases me around incessantly. it's inexaustible the thing: total on my grocery receipt, tracking number of an invoice at work, and never ever fails to be the time as it appears on a digital clock when my bladder waskes me up in the middle of the night to be serviced — i mean what is with that?). anyway, contemplating all this about captain obvious, i was immediately struck by how often and in what venues he keeps popping up. just skimming the headlines of the paper i found myself curiously longing for him, wishing he would appear and make a few points, free all the baggage we've assigned to him and stripped of the discrediting we've done him. i wonder if he'd make it known that the death toll of the earthquake in pakistan has almost hit 80,000 people and with winter upon us and millions homeless and without medical care, food, or anything at all, this is one of the most profound disasters of our era: the boston globe states "pakistan's death toll soared to 79,000 ... making it one of the deadliest quakes in modern times." that's an incredibly straightforward and universal declaration. should be pretty apparent without a lot of effort on our part. and yet, and i suppose i could be wrong about this, it seems to be it's not at all perceived by the general public as obvious. why is that? it is an unfathomable catastrophe. 79 thousand people dead. more dying, and more still who will. everyone i know — i don't exclude myself (i know me) — seems completely indifferent to this. i'd say captain obvious certainly got me there.

bushie and his republicans compatriots are screwing up. royally. foundering, flailing with impressive levels of royal screwed up-ness. i don't think there's a staunch pro-busher out there who can factually defend his performance during katrina. the majority of his own party and worse yet, his own movement (read loony idealogical right-wingers) cannot seem to reconcile his nomination of harriet miers to the high court. delay turned himself in to be fingerprinted and photographed (did you see the mugshot?) as he faces charges of money laundering. iraq is a disaster and it's gotten to the point where he can't really hide it anymore. i mean, let's break it down: his approval ratings, if one chooses to call them that, are lower than they've ever been, and are the lowest of any president in a substantial while. with the non-stop disasters of a bush administration in which republicans also control the senate and congress, lots of democrats i know are breathing huge sighs of relief. according to the polls, there's no way a republican could win the next presidential election. his or her predecessors have simply made too much of a mess for even the most clever of neocons to clean up. i mean, even a neocon with a swiffer jet couldn't get out this stain. lucky for the dems. "i told you so!" "we knew they sucked!" "see, bush really is stupid, after all! i was right all along!" and it is here, once again, that i summon captain obvious' wisdom. urgently, in fact. yes, republicans have humiliated themselves and continue to do so with impressive endurance. but "i told you so" will not win an election. i guarantee it. the democrats have some serious work to do here. finger-pointing, back-slapping and a few celebretory brewskies are not the way to go. captain obvious knows that in order to get elected, gain the faith and trust of a nation, et al takes work. the bush crew has certainly written a nice prologue. but let us not mistake it for for anything other than what it is: an exposition. the rest of the book is left to us... "chapter 1: THANKS FOR POINTING THAT OUT, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS."

in closing, i offer a few more personal details (yes, there is more to me than the part that just pig-headedly bashes conservatives). i am currently sitting in a coffee shop where i find that i'm kind of cold — seems winter is upon us — and i'm very hungry. i've got a decent walk home and i've an injured ankle. when i get home, i will be reminded that i have still not put away the giant trashbag full of winter clothes that has been the major inhabitor of my room for the last week. i didn't pick up the prescription i was supposed to get. spent way too much money today; will probably do the same tomorrow. and when i wake up tomorrow, while we're on the subject, tomorrow i will have to return to work for another crazed week. i'm going home tonight alone.

and you know what? that's fine. it's all fine. according to my dear new friend captain obvious (who often presents very similar opinions to those of his close friend admiral cliche, do you know him?), i think the key to this being happy stuff is really to be found in living moment to moment. living each momement. attempting to live yesterday or tomorrow today is no more useful than trying to negotiate next thursday last tuesday would be (snap, just you try to wrap your head around that one...). we have to try and stay present, be open, and accept what comes our way. things might not always be exactly the way we might design them were we capable of doing so. but that, too, is just fine. it's all ok because we're here and we're doing our best to live each moment is it comes. can you think of a better time to live it? i can't. basically, i find it boils down to something along the lines of, "the best we can do is to be where we are." i can't think of a much more obvious statement than that one. and yet so very elusive at the same time. in light of all this, then, who really has the last word?

i say, cap'n o: 1
the rest of us: yeah, not so much