Blogosophy

Read an article on bloggers and blogging on the CNN site today.

The gist of the article as I read it is that blogging about every detail of your life may not be a good thing. The article touches on people losing their jobs, high school administrators feeling threatened, and people fearing retribution for revealing personal details. To me, this sounds like the same kind of fear mongering that has replaced factual reporting in our 10 second sound byte/entertain me now society. Why not continue to indulge ourselves in the fear-mongering. We have a war in Iraq, terrorists living in Great Britain, the high school kid next door could be a gun toting madman, and who the hell is tracking the sexual deviant last seen outside the grade school grounds. Now we can fear the internet. Thank you Al Gore!

It’s always interesting to me when people are concerned for my safety based on what I write or say. Is their fear really for me and my well being? Or more likely are they concerned I might possess an opinion that they disagree with and since they are afraid to post I will be heard and they won’t? That seems like the right question.

I do understand some of the fear. Whether we want to admit it or not, putting something in writing means more. It means more than a spoken comment and a heck of a lot more than an unspoken one. We as human beings attach more substance to the written word. Most likely because it takes much more effort to write than speak and of course, no matter how quickly we can post information, we still have the time to edit ourselves before we expose ourselves.

There are certainly strange and odd ideas out there in the WWW (wild wacky web). I possess several. I suspect that it is incumbent upon the reader of the web to separate the proper from the improper, the insane from the sane, and the evil from good. It’s probably that simple.

Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem

Terrorist Attacks

To all of you who think that the George Bush and the US are the terrorists, I have but 1 question:

What did all those London commuters do to deserve
this morning's attack?

now back to your regularly scheduled ranting...

Fireworks and the meaning of the Fourth of July

Listening to the fireworks on Monday night, I was struck by the commercialization of even this holiday. Christmas and even Easter I can handle. New Years is nothing more than a reason to celebrate the passing of another year, just like a birthday. Mother’s day, Valentine’s day, are squishy holidays, expressly for purchasing crap for your significant other. And don’t try to convince me that sweetheart’s day is anything but a Hallmark holiday. There are 2 reasons the commercialization of the 4th traumatizes me: 1) there’s no reason to spend money. 2) Its a real American holiday with real heroes to celebrate.

There is no inherent gift giving around the 4th of July. The only 4th of July sales involve bathing suits, beer, and steaks. Not things any man ever buys for his wife. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a 4th of July card. Christmas and Easter have fantasy characters that hand out goodies to the kiddies. I know that isn’t the true spirit of those holidays but at least I get the purchasing connection.

The other holidays I equate most closely with the 4th are Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day. These are days that are meant to honor memory of those that served to keep us safe and warm. These holidays are a way for me to honor the men and women that gave quite literally all they had to give so that I could watch the Sopranos and consume Pizza Hut. Well maybe not specifically for cable and pizza but you get the idea. The other thing I like about these holidays is they also give me a chance to thank the people who I know that served. The 4th is about celebrating the birth of the single greatest nation on this earth and honoring the people that suffered, sacrificed and guided a radical idea into a fortuitous reality. I don’t believe for one second that when the kid next door gets that crazy gleam in his eye and sets the dog aflame that he is thinking about the country he lives in or the sacrifices that were made so he could live the life of relative luxury in which he exists.

I’m not quite sure what the cause of my negative reaction is. I don’t mean to sound like an old curmudgeon, but I do. I suppose I should rant about how sports, politics, food, and women were better when I was younger. But it wouldn’t be true. In my younger days I certainly enjoyed blowing stuff up as much as the next guy. And I know I wasn’t thinking about Ben Franklin, John Adams or Alexander Hamilton when I was doing it! Maybe the problem is simply that I have a job this year and I needed to get up early on Tuesday.