Too Much
Sorry I have not blogged much as of late. There are a few reasons. First, I was hit by what I am not pretty confident was Swine Flu. The “cold” I had lasted just over a week, which was strange enough–but it also brought painful headaches, loss of appetite, and low energy levels–which I do not normally associate with colds. When I visited a GP on a related matter, the doc said that it was almost certainly H1N1.
After the flu, I simply had so much work backed up that I got swamped. I had a Writing class this semester, and those are always heavy-workload courses–primarily because of correcting all the drafts and assignments in between. Right at the time I got over the flu, two successive drafts of two successive essays–four in all–were due within just a few weeks, and I tend to be meticulous in how I mark the papers, using MS Word’s comment feature to write rather detailed notes, along with an analysis and instructions at the end of the essay.
Add to that a kind of political overload or burnout that I have not experienced since the 9/11 commission–more so this time, in fact. What do you do when the outrageous in the opposition party becomes the norm? How often can you express disbelief that Sarah Palin says something so obviously untrue that one has to be blind, deaf, and stupid not to notice? When the GOP’s SOP is to make up completely ludicrous bullcrap about Obama, how many times can you call them out on it before it becomes irrelevant? When Fox News fakes crowd images three times in two weeks, how can you point it out without becoming repetitive? When people like Glenn Beck make you actually miss relatively rational people like Ann Coulter, how can you apply any sense of scale to the insane garbage they spew? When right-wing common folk become thickly populated with tea-bagger, birthers, secessionists, and armed jerks spouting death threats against the president, it becomes near-impossible to place it within a rational context. When Palin, Bachmann, and Wilson become political icons of the right wing, how can you spend much time writing how deranged they are when it feels like you’ve done this dozens of times before–and then you check and discover you actually did? When virtually everything the right wing does is so over-the-top, farcically, mind-blowingly, incomprehensibly psychotic, fleeing from reason and rationality at speeds approaching that of light itself, they all red-shift into some amorphous blob of crazy which becomes painful to witness, let alone attempt to analyze and comment on in a venue such as this paltry little blog. It just begins to seem pointless.
As a result, I have had one of my driest blogging spells since I started this blog, missing eight of the last ten days.
Coming out of this, I have decided to make an effort to steer away from politics, which, I have to admit, has been dominating this blog as of late–and I’m probably losing people’s interest as a result. I’ll still do some commentary when I just can’t stop myself–hopefully not too often–but I will be making a conscious effort to focus elsewhere. Maybe the end of my semester, my new focus on computer programming, and my trip back home for Christmas will help in that regard. I’ll have to see.
In the meantime, please forgive both my recent obsession and my more recent absence; I hope to rectify both.
I’m glad you’re fit again, Luis.
As for the politicking, write about it because it’s obvious it is something you deeply care for. Perhaps you can make another blog or a web page where your view is clearly stated and you can went off as you like, and aggregate the stuff that bothers you in one place – like list of stupid things Palin or Fox have said – such aggregates are very convincing and there are many people who would find them fascinating.
I must admit that I always read carefully what you have to say about American politics – and so often your predictions have become reality that I started to rely on them.
Cheers from Poland
Leszek Cyfer
Leszek: Thanks for the kind words and the vote of confidence. As I mentioned, I will continue to comment on politics, but it kind of took over the blog since I started several years ago. When I started, it was a blog on all kinds of topics, politics being just one. I wanted to return to that idea. But I also meant what I said above; when you have a friend who is always saying crazy stuff, you can say “But that’s insane!” only so many times before you tire of it, and if you focus on it too much, it can start to get to you. But I expect that at least a few times a week the craziness will inevitably prompt me to comment.
I first came to this blog by way of your post back in 2003 on the Chuo Line construction [trains are an obsession of mine, especially trains in Japan] but I have enjoyed a lot of your political commentary and I’ve always found your comments interesting to read. Although I read a lot of the political blogs off and on, yours is probably the only blog I’ve read consistently for years!
I really love your blog…but must admit, being Australian, I often skip the political posts. My favourite post are those about technology, food and everyday things. I lived in Japan 2003-2008 so it’s great to keep reading about stuff.
Take care.
Dan