{"id":2241,"date":"2009-04-27T22:43:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-28T02:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2241"},"modified":"2009-04-27T22:43:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-28T02:43:00","slug":"a-post-about-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2241","title":{"rendered":"A Post About Nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_L6NW1UySEKs\/SfYnb49e6dI\/AAAAAAAABKw\/RXO9Iey6LIM\/s1600-h\/seinfeld.jpg\"><img id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329490569139775954\" style=\"FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 170px\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_L6NW1UySEKs\/SfYnb49e6dI\/AAAAAAAABKw\/RXO9Iey6LIM\/s200\/seinfeld.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>The use of &#8220;Seinfeld&#8221; as a prefix in political jargon has become almost as annoyingly common as suffixing &#8220;gate&#8221; to scandals. The latest example is this weekend&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hilltimes.com\/html\/cover_index.php?display=story&amp;full_path=\/2009\/april\/27\/ignatieff\/&amp;c=1\">Seinfeld convention<\/a>&#8221; in Vancouver (christened as such because, with the golden boy being crowned without a vote, it is seen to be &#8220;a convention about nothing&#8221;).<\/p>\n<p>This follows a barrage of headline double dipping, where every election over the past few years has been dubbed a &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.ca\/search?sourceid=navclient&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;rlz=1T4GGIH_enCA256CA257&amp;q=%22seinfeld+election%22\">Seinfeld election<\/a>&#8221; at one point or another. Here&#8217;s my beef with this:<\/p>\n<p>1 &#8211; A &#8220;Seinfeld convention&#8221; sounds like a ton of fun! Giddy up! You&#8217;re telling me that a Seinfeld convention in Vancouver wouldn&#8217;t draw a packed house, generate tons of excitement, be a great time, <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_0\"><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_0\">yada<\/span><\/span> <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_1\"><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_1\">yada<\/span><\/span> <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_2\"><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_2\">yada<\/span><\/span>. If you want to make it sound boring, maybe call it the &#8220;<em>two and a half men convention<\/em>&#8221; or something like that.<\/p>\n<p>2 &#8211; Seinfeld wasn&#8217;t a show about nothing (<em>not that there&#8217;s anything wrong with that<\/em>!). You had more plot in a given episode than you&#8217;d ever get in Friends or Frasier. The &#8220;show about nothing&#8221; was in reference to a pilot Jerry and George wrote within the show. I don&#8217;t know about you, but I tend to think a bubble boy, dead fiances, some puffy shirts, a Soup Nazi, and beached whales would add a lot of excitement to an otherwise dull convention.<\/p>\n<p>3 &#8211; It&#8217;s not creative. Sure, calling the 2004 Alberta election the &#8220;<span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_3\"><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_3\">Kleinfeld<\/span><\/span> Election&#8221; was kind of clever. Just like if Bill Gates was involved in a scandal, calling it Gates-gate might be cute. But it&#8217;s lazy to just toss &#8220;Seinfeld&#8221; in front of every election as an adjective and then act like you&#8217;re as witty as Larry David.<\/p>\n<p>So let&#8217;s put a little more effort into it guys and quit the headline re-gifting. I fear we&#8217;re suffering from a case of creativity shrinkage here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The use of &#8220;Seinfeld&#8221; as a prefix in political jargon has become almost as annoyingly common as suffixing &#8220;gate&#8221; to scandals. The latest example is this weekend&#8217;s &#8220;Seinfeld convention&#8221; in Vancouver (christened as such because, with the golden boy being crowned without a vote, it is seen to be &#8220;a convention about nothing&#8221;). This follows [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[568],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}