There’s been some recent discussion of this news story (originally blogged by Marco). Some of that discussion has consisted of rational non-religious Obama supporters expressing shock upon seeing their candidate’s religious side.

Psst… wanna know a dirty little secret of American politics I learned from talking to the governor of a US state?

The majority of American citizens believe it’s important for their President to be deeply religious (sixty percent, to be exact). Thus, in order to get elected President, a politician must decide early on in his career to either believe in God or pretend to. Do you think it’s a coincidence that George W Bush was born-again immediately before running for governor of Texas? It’s just how the game is played.

Is Barack Obama most likely too smart and logical to be a devout Christian? Probably. Should we be concerned? No. Whether he believes it or not, the reality is that it’s a necessary part of the schtick.

In 2000, we sold 35% of our company to Zilo Networks, a college television network [we eventually got it back when they were unable to meet their proposed terms].

When we went in for an initial meeting, they showed us around the office. In the editing bay, a guy was working on a series called “Mind of Martin” starring an up and coming comedian named Demetri Martin. I watched the clips they were editing and thought they were the funniest thing in the world. When I got back to campus, I would re-tell the jokes that I was able to memorize.

Years later, I’d move to New York and get to know Demetri a bit through the comedy world. Anyway, today I stumbled across those clips. If nothing else, it’s funny to see Demetri with long hair.

To put all my cards on the table, here’s a link to the now-kinda-embarassing show we did for the Zilo network, Get $tupid.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely.

I predict with confidence that within five years this will be a major epidemic among American kids. It’s already a significant problem, but soon it will be an unavoidable nationwide mental health concern. This notion was reinforced over the weekend when I was biking through the wooded bike paths on Hilton Head Island and saw a group of 12-14 year old girls pass by, all of them browsing the web on their phones with one hand while steering with the other.

Being born in 1980, I consider myself an early test case for the “always on generation.” I’ve had an addiction to being “connected” for the past eight years or so and I’ve been seeing it more and more in people my age. When a new condo went up across the street from my old apartment, I suddenly had a Gursky-esque view into the personal habits of dozens of young New Yorkers. My biggest observation was that when people weren’t sleeping, they were on their computers. Even when they were eating or watching TV, they were still on their computers.

Lately I’ve been questioning whether being “always on” makes us enjoy life just a bit less. How can we be stopping to smell the roses when we’re looking at our iPhones every few minutes to see if we’ve got a new email? Would I get more satisfaction digesting a well-written novel opposed to spending that time keeping up with every forgettable tidbit to come over my RSS feeds? Are we forgetting to appreciate time spent in the presence of people we’re actually with when we’re texting with people we’re not?

While it would be silly to dispute the usefulness of the Internet and the improvements it’s brought to our daily lives, it might be time to start questioning when we’ve reached a point of diminishing returns and some temperance needs to kick in.

But let’s do that later. I’m gonna go reload my Tumblr dashboard for the next six hours until it’s time to go to bed. BRB.