Still Blogging

Well, so much for vacation. I had a change of venue, a new perspective, as it were, and I feel refreshed.

Or not.

Anyway, it took a few extra days to consider returning to the old blog and try my hand at another posting. Miss me? Well, I missed you anyway. I missed this attempt to give a shape to my reactions to the world. A diary just wouldn't be the same. It matters that these thoughts, once published, create a record of my progress through the minefields of modern existence. I've not mentioned my blog to family or friends; let them discover it on their own, if they ever do. But I am speaking to them, and to you, and my ramblings keep a little tighter hold on reality because of that effort. I feel at least some constraint from the knowledge of who might read this someday, so this blog may perhaps never even include a profanity, although you never know. But there is also the freedom to step outside the everyday relationships, and try to filter through to something more essential. The adventure continues ...

A lot's happened in these last two weeks, and it appears we'll be stewing more or less in our current state for the month of August. Policy makers around the globe are heading for their favorite vacation spots, and perhaps a few cherished days of normalcy before returning to a political world gone pure bats**t crazy, from America to Iraq (almost slipped there!). It feels like some of us have worn The Ring a bit too long, and begun to whisper phrases like "My precious" with increasing fervor. I mean, this really feels serious!

Meanwhile, our heroes did some good stuff -- ethics reform, the 9/11 Commission recommendations, etc., and some really wicked bad stuff -- like sanctioning surveillance programs deemed unconstitutional by the FISA Court. Now they're resting, and folks like myself are checking out who voted where, and why. It's not the purview of this blog to get into representative-by-representative statistics, at least for now, but there's a little block of really disappointing Democrats that voted with their Republican counterparts to allow this obscenity. It's done now, and those who would be all-powerful have become all-seeing.

This blog is for anyone, even the all-seeing. For the foreseeable future, it will be a place for thoughts constrained only by compassion, and at least a passing nod to decorum. I've tried to dispel the notion that the market on truth can be cornered by anyone, least of all this humble blogger. But the market on opinions is in dispute. The news markets are consolidating, and the desire for control by the plutocracy seems at fever pitch. Like I said, it's getting serious out there! So, I'll continue to write this blog. Around the Internet, thousands of freethinking bloggers write as well, and publish, publish, spreading around the world. The lights of reason must be snuffed out one by one, and when one dies, ten more are born, and publish.

It must seem so easy at first, purring at The Precious, waving the staffs of power, bending the will of governments and seats of justice. But those little lights keep shining, here, here, and there. They are lit by a flame that must really be eternal, no matter how long and dark may be the coming night.