In defense of the dull

Every week, it feels like there's a new "hot" issue to pursue, whether it's immigration or biotechnology or the war in Iraq. \nNevertheless, in the face of all these exciting, flashy topics, the things that most directly affect us are the dull, boring things that we'd rather have someone else handle. We want to talk about "important" issues, but it's dreary, dry subjects that actually run our lives. After all, what has more effect on your life: immigration reform or potholes? \nCase in point: the United States tax code. \nNo one wants to talk about tax code, until this time of year when we rush to H&R Block to chaotically get our returns in on time. It's the single most boring piece of government code. It's 66,498 (!) pages long. It's hideously labyrinthine and full of loopholes for those of us rich enough to hire people to find them. And now that our tax code has begun regressing under the Bush administration, the middle class has to pick up the slack of the richest 1 percent of Americans. \nLook, I know you're already bored, but our government has taken our apathy as a sign that it can manipulate the tax code as much as it wants. Anyone can make statements about tax cuts and extra deductions, but these grand policies must be made real through the nitty-gritty inanity of the tax code. While I think Ronald Reagan was one of the worst presidents ever, at least he managed to reform the tax code to some extent. With the complexity of the code reaching obscene levels, it seems that everyone agrees that the tax code needs reform. Alas, no one is actually willing to do it. \nSimilarly, IU students, though we complain about cops busting parties and sweatshop labor, don't seem to care much about the tuition increases that will affect us most directly. \nFrankly, budgets and accounting are quite boring, and we've resigned ourselves to letting someone else take care of it. Unfortunately, "someone else" doesn't really care what we think. We're so lazy we couldn't even get off our asses to go to an open forum on the subject at the Union last week. \nNow, our apathy can either be read as slothful or satisfaction with the tuition increases. Budget politics might not be sexy, but they determine how much we pay for school, which determines how much money we have left over, which could be the difference between Sam Adams and Keystone Light. \nThe "important issues" aren't necessarily grandiose or widespread. Oftentimes, they are dull, tedious problems toward which we turn a blind eye. As has been observed many times, talk is cheap. I'm surely guilty in all of this, too. I can fill this column every week with international politics and cultural criticism, but the real changes we can make are oftentimes the least interesting. Immigration reform might dominate the headlines, but properly organizing our tax code to pay for social services affects far more people. \nWe're so caught up with big ideas that we can't appreciate the enormous importance of the enormously dull. For just a moment, consider the vastly uninteresting forces that run your life, and dare to be bored.