House of Eratosthenes

We aren’t big on the SNUL (“Sorry No Updates Lately”) here at The Blog That Nobody Reads. However, some of the reasons for our light blogging lately are worthy of comment.

First, we’re on vacation. It’s not that we’re being militant about our relaxation, far from it. Folks who’ve been on vacation will know what I’m talking about; the hours have a way of just going somewhere, y’know?

But the other reason is a bit more important, we think. Millions of others see cause for hope, where we see cause for dread. The sense of urgency we feel in posting the latest thought is much greater, on those other occasions on which others see dread and we’re the ones seeing the hope. Hope is a far greater help than hindrance. You folks are feeling all hopey about your hopey-changey-goodness — far be it from us to urinate upon your parade.

However, along those lines…it’s worthy of pointing out once again. Responsible hope is a product of thought and not feeling. That goes for responsible dread, too. What we have here is a situation in which feeling inevitably leads to hope, and thought inevitably leads to dread.

Let’s comment specifically on some of the news bits. There aren’t very many of them this week, in fact, I think this list will be easier to make now than it ever will be again in my lifetime.

Millions Feel Hope: Yeah, because they were told to. Let’s ‘fess up: The news writer who jots down something that is entirely unrelated to You-Know-Who will become a pariah in the journalism community (something that shouldn’t exist in the first place); we will hear nothing about starving people in Burma, drought in Chad, earthquakes in India. A meteor could be thirty hours away from Earth, with apocalyptic consequences for us — and we’d never know. Let’s get candid about something else: If a news guy does jot down something about Whats-His-Face, and it isn’t flattering, that guy will be “on the outs” as well. Every single newspaper looks like the most-popular-kid’s yearbook at graduation time. Hugs! Kisses! That’s news now; may it rest in peace.

Government Will Become Transparent: Could be a good thing. But it doesn’t start-and-stop with transparent government. It’s intended to reduce the tactics and methods available for keeping the nation safe. To provide income for lawyers. Injunctions, suits, writs, et al, about to rise exponentially. That is the point.

The “Angry Black Man” Theme Being Put Out To Pasture: Yes, here, I’ll say something nice about Barack Obama and His Holy Event of being crowned as our new Holy Emperor. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes…A-freakin’-men. Young men of all races, stop pretending you’re Tupac Shakur or Notorious B.I.G. when you’re not Tupac, you didn’t know Tupac, you don’t know anyone who really is like Tupac, and nobody wants you to end up that way. Look people in the eye, stand up straight, say please and thank-you — and if your feet are size eighteen, people will see that without you fanning them out when you sit down like some urban peacock. Stop strutting. Offer those around you some identity (since you’re so desperately in search of one) that has something to do with something besides rage — your President can do it, you can do it. This is a great contribution The Annointed One has made to our culture, and we should make the most of it.

Curious, Introspective, As Contrasted With His Predecessor: I’ve been showered for two years with quotes from speeches, Dreams of My Father, Audacity Of Hope, et al. I’ve yet to hear of a single thing Barack Obama knows about anything culminating from some tidbit of information some person, named or unnamed, gave him. To the best I can find out, He simply “knows” stuff and “thinks” stuff. Is there some anecdotal evidence to the contrary? There is much being written about Him this week, and I have yet to see any of it. It comes down to this: I don’t really know this is a guy who can be told anything He isn’t already prepared to hear.

Information Revolution: With all due respect, don’t be such a silly ass. Obama as an electoral phenomenon, as I’ve been pointing out for the better part of a year, is the antithesis of specificity. How does even the laziest mindset reconcile this? Details flying around in the air, thick and fast, during the Bush Presidency…Katrina…Waterboarding…Weapons of Mass Destruction…North Korea…380+ ppm of carbon in the atmosphere. Suddenly, now that we’ve got a new guy in, it’s all just good feelings — NO hard data anywhere. But we’re supposed to believe facts are being grappled-with now, and weren’t before? How ya figger? Seriously? The only answer I can produce, is that these are grown-up children doing the talking. They want the facts confronted and used for responsible decision-making, but they want them confronted and used by someone else — some “daddy” somewhere — keeping all that hard work away from them. Proxy thinking. We’re being told what to think, by people who are accustomed to dutifully thinking what they’re told to think by yet others.

Michelle Wore (Fill-in-the-Blank): Gag. The sidebar that mentions this should be a sidebar and nothing more, the size of a book of postage stamps. The stories that mentioned this about Laura Bush, if I recall, were the size of a large cup of coffee lying on its side. These stories about Michelle’s dresses cover multiple pages. I don’t really know what her husband is going to do about Guantanamo, or global warming, or what his position is on bailouts, or the Fairness Doctrine, and neither do you. I’m told people shouldn’t be blogging because they don’t have the credentials to prove they’ll be doing journalism right. Is it too much to ask that we see some of that so we know what it looks like? I ask for specifics, I get a link to The Holy One’s web site. Web sites are the dream communicative medium of the public figure who wishes to avoid specific commitments; they can be changed overnight, in an hour, in the blink of an eye. And Obama has a history of such deceipt. The history He does not have, is one of telling us specifically what He’s going to do, in such a way that He’ll be compelled to stick to what He says through thick & thin.

How (Obama/Michelle/Some Movie Starlet) Spent (His/Her/Its) Day, Hour-By-Hour: The demand for this kind of information must exist. It must be keen enough to supplant any demand for other more worthwhile bits of information, that have been evicted from these pages to make room. If you think that isn’t a problem of some kind, you’re nuts. This is why the bitching bloggers are doing their bitching. Yes, they have nothing to bitch about; that much is true. That’s why they’re/we’re bitching. And it’s worthwhile bitching, because things should not be this way.

So Busy, So Much To Do, He Confronts Long List, Confronting a Crisis, Lots of Work, et al: If I hear or read it one more freakin’ time…so help me…SO HELP me…

[…] know Morgin Freeman is already bored with “What is Michelle wearing?” stuff, but a bit of fashion chatter always brightens up this place, so I’ll drop down one spot on […]
- dustbury.com » Lady in red | 01/23/2009 @ 21:48

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Memo For File LXXXThursday, January 22nd, 2009

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Thursday, January 22nd, 2009