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| Blogging as addictive behavior |
| 2002-04-08 |
I'd keep writing this shit even if no one was reading it. I do this first and foremost for my own benefit, and if anyone else gets anything out of it, then it's icing on the cake. This blog thing has been cathartic as all get out, and I find myself feeling better as I purge the toxins of frustration from my system by writing everything out here. When I first started out, no one was reading this and it didn't matter one whit.I can sympathize only too well. I've been stuck in the seemingly endless loop of compiling Rantburg since 9-11. It's like reading a book you can't put down, only I'm writing it. One of these days there are going to be a lot of books covering the War on Terror, but for now we don't know how it's going to turn out. Hell, it's possible we could even lose. The books might be in Arabic and not read a thing like what we've been watching. But I'm betting we'll win in the end. Talk about a cast of thousands. Try millions. We have an International Criminal Mastermind with more than a few overtones of the Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu. We have venal dictators and crafty Oriental Potentates and shadowy international arms merchants. Raymond Chandler suggested that when you don't know what should happen next, have a man with a gun step through the door. We have gunnies, snuffies, even giggling psychopaths. There are sniveling cowards looking frantically for someone, anyone, to surrender to, and Internationally Renowned Perfessors demanding to be on the other side, even though the other side's plans for the likes of them include walls and blindfolds. There are spittle-spraying, eye-rolling beturbaned religious fanatics, whipping up the masses for Holy War. There's the plain-talkin' Texas president, underestimated by friend and foe alike (see Destry Rides Again), opposing a shadowy Council of Boskone. We have Chamberlains, Quislings, and more than a few Duces and Fuehrers and generalissimos, riots in the streets, plucky reporters and reporterettes, in fact all the elements necessary for either something by Tolstoy or Dostoevsky or maybe an excruciatingly bad 1930s novel. Or maybe both, with elements of Wagner. And Tom Clancy and Ian Fleming. "There are no heroes," the nay-sayers said in their querelous post-modernist, Peace Studies voices. Don't they look stupid now? We have our heroes to go with our villains, every bit as magnificent in their bravery and goodness as the other side is mired in Evil. Just think of the matter-of-fact heroism of NYPD and FDNY, going in because there was a chance the buildings wouldn't fall down. We have Todd Beamer, Jeremy Glick, Tom Burnett, Mark Bingham, and Barbara Olson, resisting to the last. Mike Spann and Daniel Pearl, just doing their jobs, with danger and treachery all around them. Soldiers who are by God Heroic in their dedication and bravery, and even some allies who are true blue. And we have men and women who either don't get in the papers at all or who're mentioned once, like those who clobbered Shoe Boy. I'll keep compiling Rantburg because I've got to know what happens next. And I'll keep reading because, IMHO, your site is still the best place to pull all the threads together. Thanks for continuing! Thanks, y'old grouch. I'll be here. I can't stop... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |