Returning to Form/Forming a Return

It has been months since I posted anything on this blog. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that I got married recently. Planning such an event consumes mental energy among other things.

I also stopped posting partly because the "Spirit of 76'" motif that I was utilizing did not serve me well. One day last spring, something occurred to me: politics don't matter, and I have nothing to say about them. At least, not on a regular basis.

This new worldview of mine is rooted in the fact that certain political outcomes seem to be unavoidable even in the face of popular opposition and supposed procedural impossibility. Yes, I am talking about the universal health care bill. I was led to believe that Senator Scott Brown would be "the final vote that would destroy health care". Hence, I drove through a rainstorm to vote for him. Lo, and behold, the bill somehow passed regardless. Who knows what back-alley arm-twisting, threats, and probably-illegal conspiring went into turning the president's certain failure on this issue into a success? Does anyone think it is odd that this bill, once dead in the water, somehow passed?

The experience made me realize that we, as citizens, have absolutely no control over anything that politicians do. Therefore, politics, just like weather, traffic, and natural disasters, are a part of the human experience that we must navigate and negotiate without any hope of changing them for the better.

As a result, why blog about politics? Blogging about politics has become about as useful and interesting as blogging about weather or traffic patterns. To do so occasionally might provoke interest, but to do so constantly will only provoke boredom. We seem fated to slave away under the inept dictatorship of a pack of several hundred suit-wearing numb-skulls, led by a charlatan-in-chief. Heath Ledger's Joker was right: it's all part of the plan. Even once-appreciable members of the opposition have either disappointed me with compromise (Senator Brown) or have become cartoonish, bloated versions of themselves, amping up their rhetoric without much subtlety or effect (Sarah Palin).

What else, then, ought I discuss? There is plenty else. And though I have no faith in politics anymore, I will still return to it occasionally. Politics is not good for one's daily diet. Yet a few political calories might go down nicely occasionally, like a fatty dessert that leaves you wishing afterward that you had not eaten it.

It must be said that political philosophy and geo-politics are far more interesting than American tabloid politics. I would rather discuss the need for stronger relations with India to counter Pakistan than the latest doings of John Edwards' mistress, of Sarah Palin's daughter, of President Obama's stupid lap dogs.

My new blog title retains my inherent old-fashioned, miserable Yankee outlook without being overtly political. Let's see how long my new experiment in blogging lasts. Perhaps it will take root, and perhaps it will be another six months before you read anything new here.