Reason #1: Work, family, and the holidays seem more important.
Reason #2: (The latest variation on a theme) -- Calling humanity a threat to the planet, Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai urged democratic reform and an end to corporate greed after becoming the first African woman to collect the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. And if that's not enough, there's always her crackpot theories about AIDS that will receive even more positive attention now that she's a certified, bona fide, on the other side Nobel Peace Prize winner. Who knew that the Nobel Peace Prize could be further degraded than by previously awarding it Yasser Arafat and Jimmy Carter?
The fact that someone so ignorant of the basic tenets of reality and so chock full of nonsense is taken seriously and feted by the intelligentsia, Big Media, and politicians of all stripes is prfoundly distressing. When Maathai is ridiculed publicly by more than just a couple of bloggers for being an idiot, Cliff Notes Marxist, more deserving of being tarred and feathered for suggesting that "humanity" is a threat to the planet than being given a check for $1,400,000 to spread her particular brand of anti-human lunacy, then maybe I'll begin to believe once more that there is hope for mankind.
I'll be generous and give us a 50-50 chance right now. A good first step would be disestablishing the Nobel Peace Prize and awarding a Nobel Freedom Prize instead. I've always believed freedom is more important than peace and if you honestly seek out the root causes of so many of our most serious geopolitical problems today, valuing peace over freedom seems to be at the heart of them -- starting with Iraq.
See, I could rant like this every day about something, but what's the point?
but what's the point?
I'm reminded of something attributed to Sir Edmund Burke. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
I don't think I said I'm doing nothing, especially as I believe you think that focusing on work and family are far from abandoning hope. What I meant was that I'm not spending extra hours writing comments on the absurdities of modern day life for about 20-25 people that are only here because they already understand and generally agree with everything I would have written about.
There are many battles to be fought. I'm, shall we say, conserving my ammunition.
Wow, I wonder what it would be like to have 20-25 people a day at my blog. Of course, it would help if it hadn't crashed and burned, but that's hardly my fault. I blame TypePad entirely for that and they assure me they're working tirelessly on their end to clean up the mess and get things going again.
Yes, anyway, please note my new address, Charles and sometime after the holidays perhaps you can swing in for a look around. And I would have taken you up on that drink offer if I had been anywhere in the neighborhood at the time. Tend to your family, boy; thoroughly enjoy these special days with them. We can muddle through life without you, I'm sure.
Posted by: greg at 08:13 PM