The Pause That Refreshes

Well, that was interesting.

I really did take a month off and let me tell you, it was fabulous. I read. I wrote. I read some more, and I wrote some more. I rested. I walked, and I ran. And I cooked. I took a trip to New York City, and basically enjoyed life for a month.

And I unplugged from our political discourse, as much as it is possible in this day and age to do such a thing. I kept abreast of the basic news but politics no longer consumed my life. I was a much happier camper as a result.

I’ve said this before, like a thousand gazillion times, and my hiatus hasn’t changed my mind: 99.9% of the bullshit that happens in our discourse is totally unimportant. The latest Sarah Palin Face-Tweet, the newest intolerant Glenn Beck rant, the thing that has Ed Schultz’s boxers in a twist or put the Great Orange Satan in a tizzy does not, in the grand scheme of things, matter one iota. It’s noise and diversion. It’s manipulation, and unhooking from the madness is a wonderful thing.

We’ve been here before. Nothing is new, and yet everything is different. Our traditional news media has failed us, following rabbit trails like the "TSA outrage” story that wasn’t. Can I tell you people how disappointed I was not to get groped by the TSA when I flew to New York over Thanksgiving? The body-scanner machines at the Nashville airport weren’t even in use when we traveled. There were no lines, no scenes, no outraged travelers waving copies of the Constitution.

Ah well, it’s not the first time the media has failed us. William Randolph Hearst is the antecedent to Rupert Murdoch, after all. “Remember The Maine” foreshadowed Saddam’s WMDs. How interesting that Chandra Levy’s real killer was convicted in the same month we had another phony media-created story. Gary Condit’s career was ruined by the same yellow journalism hungry for blood which has always reared its ugly head. And yet, justice for Chandra was served, the media be damned.

Time marches on. The media pathetically clings to its outdated “cyber-Monday” narrative, useless as a reflection of modern buying habits but very useful for online retailers. With my inbox flooded with dozens of cyber-Monday discount offers, I asked that eternal question: is the news media in service to commerce, or is it the other way around? I still haven’t a clue. Regardless, it’s money which drives our narrative, not politics. It’s not that the media it too liberal or too conservative, it’s that it’s too profit-oriented. Same as it ever was.

It’s all so much nonsense. Every president since George Washington has been accused of doing outrageous things, undermining the Republic, threatening our way of life. And yet we’re still here.

It’s true that every utterance is amplified to the hundred-millionth degree by the megaphone that is the modern media. But we have a choice. You can choose not to listen to talk radio, watch cable news, surf the blogs or believe the bullshit e-mail someone forwarded to you.

I’m so old I remember when Eisenhower was considered to be a tight-assed right-winger, yet liberals today quote his 1961 warnings about the military-industrial complex as if they were the words of Noam Chomsky. We can get riled up at the thought of BP-apologizer Rep. Joe Barton chairing the House Energy & Commerce committee but that won’t stop the juggernaut that is green energy investment. Fox News bobbleheads can spread the seeds of doubt about climate change all they want, News Corp. still has a corporate carbon-neutral initiative that would make the American Petroleum Institute’s head explode. So really, none of this shit matters. What will happen is gonna happen.

I’m not entirely back yet. I started on a project in November which I want to finish. I'm enjoying life outside of blogging. I may check back with y’all later, though.

Happy Holidays.

Only In New York: Santas Dancing In Midtown Manhattan

Housekeeping Note

It's only been a week but NaNoWriMo 2010 has been a bit of a bust for me so far as I've been sick as a dog all week. I'm going to have to hit it hard for the remaining few weeks to make up for lost time and expected time off for Thanksgiving and birthday celebrations.

So that means I'm temporarily suspending comments. I can't untie these blog apron strings if I have to keep coming back here to approve comments. On the up-side, this might deter some of the amazing comment spam I've been getting. Two of my favorites:

I think, that you are not right. I am assured. Write to me in PM, we will talk.
By Anonymous on Mixed Message on 10/21/10

AND:

Hello, I think your blog is epic. Congrats. Funny Online Games
By Anonymous on Your Modern Conservative Inferiority Complex on 10/21/10

Hilarious.

In the meantime, I have a final post up over at The Swash Zone.

Ask Your Doctor If Hiatus Is Right For You v. 1,047

I’m doing NaNoWriMo again this year. Blogging will be light to nonexistent (I hope) until Dec. 1. Of course, you know me. I’m the idiot who thought it would be fun to take a hiatus during the height of the healthcare debate. How’d that work out?

I’ll allow myself a post-election post, and of course we are traveling at the end of the month so there might be some Graffiti Blogging. But hopefully I’ll be making headway on a new fiction project.

I’m pretty much convinced that the news media has fucked this country over royally and the only solution is to just not participate in the bullshit. So if I’m not watching MSNBC or CNN or reading the newspaper I’ll be a lot happier and have less need to vent.

Visit my friends on my blogroll. See you on the other end.

Ask Your Doctor If Hiatus Is Right For You, v.3

It’s March madness, and I don’t mean the NCAA basketball tourney. No, I’m talking NaNoEdMo, National Novel Editing Month.

I’ll have red pen in hand, working on my draft and fixing some major holes in the manuscript. Also have some other paying assignments due this month, some travel planned, a dog dying of cancer and a new puppy needing lots of exercise. So the blog is going to have to go on the back burner for a while.

Of course, I don’t know how to quit you. This doesn’t mean I'll be shutting the blog down entirely. I'm just giving myself permission to not have a new post every day. If I do have a new post every day, you have my permission to kick my butt in comments, remind me that blogging is not writing, and shame me back to work.

I will thank you. I promise.

In the meantime, visit some of my favorite peeps listed on my blogroll.

As usual let me recommend Phila’s Friday Hope Blogging and the beach bums on the Swash Zone.

Ask Your Doctor If Hiatus Is Right For You, v 2.0

How interesting that I first asked this question almost exactly two years ago. In the past two years I’ve learned a lot about this blogging thing, including that my original assessment was 100% correct: it is both cathartic and addictive. It can also be a huge time-waster.

So the time has come to set some boundaries. Mine is a temporary one: I’m about to embark on a creative project that will leave my time for blogging extremely limited. My project will take up most of my creative energies during November, so I hope you will indulge me the occasional cat photos, garden blogging and only sporadic rants. Hopefully I will be channeling my energies in a different direction, at least for the next several weeks. I should be back sometime in December, God willing and the creek don’t rise.

There are plenty of blogs out there so I don’t need to tell anyone where to go to scratch that liberal itch, but over the years I have come across some amazing unsung peeps whom I encourage you to check out:

Bouphonia; be sure to stop by on Friday for a weekly dose of Friday Hope Blogging. It’s the best way to end the week that I can think of.

Interested Citizen is a Nashville blogger, like me. I always see a story I hadn’t seen before over there.

Southern Female Lawyer offers some killer recipes as well as some kick-ass commentary.

John Shuck is pastor of First Presbyterian Church (PC-USA) of Elizabethton, TN. He’s a social justice warrior with a mission for GLBT equality. Lots of good stuff over there.

The Impolitic--that’s Libby Spencer and Cpt. Fogg. Two great bloggers, one from Detroit and one from Florida.

See y’all on the other side!

Love & Peace,

Southern Beale