Tho' the Teeming Millions (sorry Cecil) should wail and gnash their teeth, tonight I won't be posting any more than this. Be comforted knowing that I have a nice long list of blog item concepts waiting on sundry pet peeves.
Of course we must all know our customers and cater to them. So by popular demand I'm writing a bit about the direction of this blog. After all, the hits are in the triple digits now.
If you've read Harry Stein's How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (And Found Inner Peace) you have some idea of where I'm coming from. By all rights I ought to be at least a Democrat if not farther left. But as I gradually became more politically aware I noticed how much unadulterated horse manure was coming from that side, and how utterly intolerant they were. That probably started with Jimmy Carter, progressed through the Bakke case, the Borking, and finally the Clarence Thomas hearings sent me over the top. After that I could no longer sustain the idea that one party was as bad as the other.
Then there's Slick Willie. I was no big fan of Bush I, and Clinton was nothing if not a great talker. I was more than willing to give him a listen until he claimed that he didn't inhale.
Since then it's been Tawana Brawley, Waco, OJ, the screwing of Newt Gingrich, Clinton blaming talk radio for the OKC explosion, Democrats defending the indefensible with Clinton time after time, and the media providing cover for it all. How could a politically aware reasonably moral person continue to stand the stench of the Democrats and the Left? Yet how could the Republicans fail to capitalize on it? Did we have the politicians, public morality and govt we deserved?
So I wind up with tension between a naif and a cynic, an idealist and a techie, blue collar background vs. white collar education, urban vs. rural, tradition vs. cutting edge technology and social evolution, immigrant vs. native (one of my parents wasn't born in the USA), libertarian vs. conservative and outsider vs. status quo. In the eyes of the press I must be a rabid conservative, but I honestly believe that I'm nonideological - if something doesn't work I ditch it, no matter how pretty it sounds.
And I think religion works. Don't bother looking for me in a church, and my Bible won't wear out any time soon. But I'm not going to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I might not practice it myself, but I wouldn't be without it. I respect the immense contribution of Christianity to our culture, and admire its restraint in the face of endless, often gratuitous provocations.
Enough. I'll do better tomorrow.
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