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Arabia
Apathy marks first Saudi voter registration
2004-12-20
It's hard to care about an "election" where nothing is being decided...
Despite a campaign urging residents to register before Thursday's deadline, Saudi men — women are barred from voting — have shown little enthusiasm for the first nationwide elections in a kingdom long regarded as autocratic, secretive and resistant to reform. During 30 minutes at a Riyadh voter registration center, only two people — an old man and a prince — walked in to sign up. At another center, a mere eight people registered in 45 minutes. By Sunday, only about 100,000 of 600,000 eligible voters in the Riyadh area had registered since the centers opened Nov. 23. The three-stage municipal council elections begin in the capital Feb. 10. Saudis have not been swayed by pictures of senior princes and football stars signing up to vote. Nor have they been driven to emulate Iraqis and Palestinians who are due to cast ballots next month. "It didn't occur to me" to register, said Mohammed al-Subai, 29, who works in public relations. "How would it change my life?" asked Faisal al-Amer, a 28-year-old electric company supervisor. "I want democracy, but making all that effort for municipal elections is not worth it."
There's more at the link, if you care.
Posted by:Seafarious

#11  Apathy is a very personal thing. It is really hard to quantify. Fred's ACME Delux Apathy Meter is a work in progress.

Dave D: a dead person would not register on an apathy meter because he/she/it is not wired for anything anymore. A zero on the meter just means no apathy.

A true feelings meter (TFM) would be constructed like a galvanometer, with zero in the middle, negative givashits going to the right (apathy), and positive givashits to the left (caring). For instance, a Rantburger reads or hears about the Arafish floating belly up in the aquarium. His or her TFM gets pegged all the way to the left. He CARES about the event very deeply, but not for the Arafish, per se.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2004-12-20 10:22:35 PM  

#10  Details, details. One must honor the red tape above all else...
Posted by: Seafarious   2004-12-20 8:59:34 PM  

#9  But how can they let the wimminz vote when they can't produce a driver's license???
Posted by: True German Ally   2004-12-20 8:51:01 PM  

#8  "*thwoooooop*"

That's the sound the Foo Bird makes as it flies round and round in ever-tightening circles, faster and faster, until it finally flies up its own ass at the speed of light and disappears from the space-time continuum.
Posted by: Dave D.   2004-12-20 8:51:00 PM  

#7  Well, I'd say zero would be an explosion due to caring too much and too deeply, a condition I would characterize as a perfect Diane Sawyer impression, and 250 would be an implosion of utter nothingness, the void of perfection, a Zen level of apathy, a condition I would characterize as uh, um... What the hell were we talking about here? Aw, who cares? *thwoooooop*

(That's an implosion sound effect, obviously.)
Posted by: .com   2004-12-20 8:45:42 PM  

#6  So a dead person would register an infinite number of givashits on the meter, right? And if a person registered zero on the meter, it would mean that he cared so freakin' much about the issue that he'd implode into a infinitely dense cloud of charged anxietrons, and disappear from the universe?

This concept "needs work", Paul...
Posted by: Dave D.   2004-12-20 8:34:32 PM  

#5  The bigger the number, the greater the apathy. When the needle is pegged on the right at 250, it means that you do not give a BIG SH*T. That's all there is to know.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2004-12-20 8:23:46 PM  

#4  AP -- No fair. I was a liberal arts major. Can you explain that to me in multicultural terms?
Posted by: Matt   2004-12-20 8:08:22 PM  

#3  bad planning - all the Saudis are out doing their belated Hannukah and last minute Christmas shopping
Posted by: Frank G   2004-12-20 8:06:40 PM  

#2  By the way, units of apathy are in milli-givashits. The low range digital version is in micro-givashits. The extra low range model was abandoned because nano-givashits are so close to zero as to be unimportant. The units are inverse to personal feelings, so a high reading, say 200 mgas means relatively strong apathy.

Kinda like being highly ambivalent. There is a correlation between ambivilance and apathy, but I lost the conversion formula, and I do not care if I ever find it.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2004-12-20 7:29:45 PM  

#1  Just had a thought...I bet voter registration would go WAY up if they let the wimminz vote too...LONG lines at the polls as well. And wouldn't that twist a few turbans!
Posted by: Seafarious   2004-12-20 5:57:08 PM  

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