Wherein I Try to Convince People That They Should Vote

While I imagine the "regular" readership of The Freak Report could be counted on one hand, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the 2015 Canadian Federal election that just kicked off this past weekend.

The short version is this:  if you are an eligible voter, you should make a point of voting in the election.  Seriously.  Do it.  Take a few moments this October and go vote.  Don't make excuses, just go do it.

If that short plea from a random stranger on the internet didn't convince you to go vote, well, consider the following.   (Be sure to read past the next paragraph!)

I can't address all the reasons why someone might choose not to vote, but a common one that I do want to address is that "my vote won't matter."  To this I say... yes and no.  In some sense, it's true that an individual's vote doesn't really matter.  Populations these days are just too large for any one single vote to materially change the outcome.  Without harping on things too much, a single vote is less than 1% of eligible voters - much less than 1%, really - so no, it doesn't really make a whole lot of difference whether any single individual votes or who they vote for.

"But wait", you might say, "aren't you trying to convince people to vote?  Because all this talk of votes not mattering isn't really all that encouraging."  Well, no, not if one looks at things individually.  But when you look at the aggregate, when large segments of the population are underrepresented at the polls, well, that does matter.  And can matter quite a bit. 

There was an article on CBC a while after the 2011 Federal Election which reported on a study that examined the effect of underrepresentation of young voters (defined as being under 30) during that election.  (The article is here for those interested.)  While the election had an overall voter turnout of a little over 60%, the youth turnout was under 40%.  The study found that had the youth turnout been the same as the overall turnout, the results of the election would likely have been much different - notably, the Conservatives would likely not have won a majority.

That article suggests to me that when large swathes of eligible voters choose not to vote, the outcome of the election can change significantly.  So in this sense, whether or not someone votes very much does matter, not as an idividual, but as part of a group.  And this is why I say everyone should make sure to vote.  Because it matters that all segments of the population are represented.  Because groups do have the ability to make a difference for the better.  So go vote.  Don't say it doesn't matter, because it does.  Just go vote.

Lastly, on a personal note, I feel that if someone who is eligible elects not to vote, then they have no right to complain about the outcome.  So if nothing else, vote so you can proudly complain about the results of the election for the next four years or so.

And with that, I shall get down off the soap box and will hopefully return with something more light hearted in my next post, whenever that happens to be.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Isn't it Ironic?

After a much longer delay than intended (I have no excuse) the latest episode of The Word Smith makes its internet debut at the usual venue.  I hope to get the next page up much quicker than this one, but as this weekend is looking to be somewhat busy it's probably not going to be up next week.

And now a discussion about irony.

One tricky thing about writing a comic about a grammar conscious super hero who fights to protect the English language (or thus he would claim) is that I really ought to at least make the effort to be as correct as possible with my grammar in the comic, and I am not a grammar nut.  Granted, there's definitely some leeway with writing dialogue since real people don't always talk perfectly grammatically and they usually manage to understand each other just fine even so.  But still, it's the principle of the matter, and, while I think I'm reasonably competent when it comes to writing and stuff (technical term, that, "stuff"), I don't really have any personal pet peeves and I don't really nitpick about the finer points of grammar or things like that.  This can make coming up with topics a bit tricky.

Sorry, that was a bit long winded there.  Moving onto the actual topic of the moment:  irony.

As part of writing this episode of the comic, I did some reading up on definitions of irony to try to make sure I was using the term at least passingly correctly.  It seems to me that irony is one of those things which is a bit nebulous:  oh, there's definitions and examples and that's all well and good, but it's not something as well defined as, say, 2+2=4, and there seems to be some leeway as to what is or is not considered to be irony.

An example.  Some people seem to think that sarcasm is (or can be) a form of verbal irony, but this is by no means universal and not all sarcasm is ironic.

The situation that I have set up in this episode has attempted to employ situational irony -- The Pen has gone to some lengths (to the point of turning off her phone) so that her boss cannot contact her and drag her into some language related escapades but, as today's page shows, language related escapades appear to be happening anyway.  Is this ironic?  I'm still undecided on the matter, which is why I have the Waitress (real name as yet undetermined) babble a bit about the subject in the final panel.

TLDR version:  go look at this other comic which seems to match up with my thoughts on the matter fairly well.  Also go read my comic.

Until next time
Freak Out,
-TFitC