The Onion has been brilliant for years

Picking back up on the politics topic before I get back into the Obama thing...

I just came across this, written almost eight years ago:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784

Really quite insane. Jokes truly did become reality.

I think it's kind of telling that comedians have become the last gasp of genuine social commentary. And no, I'm not talking about John Stewart, who stopped being funny in 2005 (though he was great in 2003-2004 and I heard improved in 2008). Saturday Night Live sketches were some of the biggest moments in the race, and the more colloquial and humorous world of blogs was constantly several weeks ahead of the columnists in major newspapers and TV reports.

A smart friend referred me to http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/ a few months ago, and it's now one of my favourite sites. It's about the economy, says the things most others don't, and has a great sarcastic tone about it. The major point the site seems to make is that the guys who now tell us things like 'Sydney property prices will survive unscathed' are the same ones who both made the current mess and didn't see the crash coming. Hmm...

I suppose in the end comedy is mostly about truth (or it wouldn't be funny), something the mass media hasn't been interested in for years.

Well looks like this kinda died already really

The thing about stuff like this is that I really can't bring myself to write something short. I always want what I write to be long and well thought out. So of course I never start. I'm sure this is quite common.

But if the idea of a blog is just to get stuff out there, no double checking (or at least no triple checking), then maybe I should just get writing? I dunno, I really want to say some stuff, but why?

I am also aware that this is possible the least original post whoever is reading this has come across in some time. It really amounts to 'wah wah writers block'.

Filling your brain with stuff

In this internet age, we have so many things to keep us occupied that we are always spoiled for choice. But is it always choice?

I realised a couple of months ago that a lot of things I'd been doing for 'entertainment' were more like compulsions, as were many of my non-entertainment activities. In particular, computer games had been a big thing for me for years, but I realised that I hadn't really enjoyed them for some time, but was ploughing through a pile of unfinished games out of some kind of compulsion. I have now made a clean break, have not played a single game in over two months, and while not exactly life-changing, it feels great to not have that hanging over my head.

This is actually very common among game players. A lot of games nowadays play like 15 hour long interactive movies interspersed with frustrating roadblocks to progression. Gamers have convinced themselves that these things are 'works of art' (and parts of them can be) that MUST be experienced. The trouble is, when you add up all the 'must play' games you wanted to get through, it becomes a daunting task with hundreds of hours of what is now 'work' sitting there on your shelf. There is even a semi-official term for the collection of games you own and want to play through but either don't have the time to or avoid because it seems like hard work - the 'pile of shame'.

I also have had the same feeling sometimes about TV shows waiting on the tape or DVD unwatched, or simply 'movies I mean to see' lists. Also books, articles, following threads on forums, music, anything really. I somehow lost the ability to simply enjoy what I want when I want, and allowed some kind of 'thirst for knowledge' on the topic (be it games, music, whatever) to take over as the primary driver. And in the end, I just avoided it all and did things that didn't require commitment (like random internet browsing or TV watching), creating a feeling of guilt for 'wasting my time' - I'd worked out a way to feel selfishly guilty about wasting time that was already selfishly dedicated to myself!

I suppose in some ways it was a strange combination of hedonism treated like materialism. I had turned 'experience' into a work, something to grasp hold of.

Funny how your brain can get like that.

Obama and my history of following US politics part one

Well if I'm going to do this, what better place to start then with potentially the greatest political leader we will see in our lifetime. I suppose I'll start this blog re-launch with list all that I think about Bams, and chronicle my experience of following the 2008 US election.

Quick summary – I’m a political junkie, and freaking love Barack Obama. Probably the biggest reason is that despite being a very astute politician, he's the closest thing to a genuine outsider to have been elected to such a high office in our lifetime. It also helps that he's relatively progressive, self-analysing, and self-made (as a man, obviously not as a President, you need help for that). And after the ludicrousness that was 'alphabet soup Bush', a great orator as world leader means a great deal to a 'words' man such as myself.

On a related note, I told everyone who would listen to me that Obama was going to win months ago. The media loves a race, and the establishment hates to admit a loss, but he had it from the early primaries. I wish I had written a blog post or something to prove I called it, oh well. Ask someone I know and they'll tell you what a broken record I was.

But on with the history I suppose. In all likelihood a non-linear ramble, but that's called a blog isn't it?

…

My interest in US politics really started in 2000. The Bush/Gore/Florida stuff was gripping, disturbing and insane. I started following that election in the primaries, remembering the two more interesting candidates were the basketball player and the war hero, but it settled on Gore (boring VP) and Bush (to quote Letterman at the time 'a colossal boob’). I started watching 'The Awful Truth' on TV back then, and the consensus from that and most other commentary was that there wasn't much difference between the two candidates. That’s right – Michael Moore thought there wasn’t any difference between Gore and Bush (I went back and watched those Awful Truth episodes years later, and my memory served me correctly).

But it was really ‘hail to the thief’ that got me hooked. Bush lost, but his brother was governor in the deciding state, so he ‘won’. It was ludicrous – how could this possibly happen in a first world country? On a related note, how could almost half of Americans have voted for a guy so stupid? At the time many said it was stage fright that caused Bush to look retarded 95% of the time. We’ve since learned he spent most of his life frying his brain with alcohol and blow. He’s the only President to ever have a criminal record (from a drink driving episode where he almost killed his sister). Many wrote off his earlier indiscretions as from his youth, but he was in his 30s!

Anywhoo, everyone forgot about the silly boy who was ‘President’ for a while, but he popped up again as star of the September 11 show in 2001. Without going into too much on that event, it made him something of a decent figure for a while (leaving aside the fact the attacks happened on his watch…). He looked like he and his cronies would go down in history as forgettable guys in non-forgettable circumstances. Pretty remarkable that they changed the world much more then whoever hijacked those planes did.

This, combined with the 2001 re-election of the Howard government based on lies, fear and racial prejudice, began my longstanding mistrust of many Christians’ conservative political views. I became very angry at Christians who I believed ignored the idea of liberty for the sake of generic rhetoric on sticking point issues, usually combined with a lack of political knowledge and/or any idea of expediency. They could support a fool/egomaniac/racist/sexist/whatever just because he called himself a Christian and was anti gay rights/abortion/muslim/some other issue that they can barely change anyway. Yet would never consider a politician whose views were about very Christian things (such as helping the poor, freedom of speech etc), just because they had a different position on some fringe issue and didn’t pretend to go to church. I imagine my take on that will be intertwined throughout this narrative. Hopefully I’ll be able to see my own blinkers while writing this out too.

Next up, Iraq and Kerry v Bush. Maybe. Who knows how far I’ll get.

One more go...

So I spend a fair ammount of time writing comments on other people's blogs and on forums (though not as much these days), so maybe I'll give this another shot.

I've been inspired particularly by Mark Barry's blog, and having quit my role as editor of PALGN after three years of work without the rewards I was hoping for, my work downtime can perhaps be spent on something like this.

I've re-christened this blog 'Dave's inane ramblings' as I haven't been known as D.Lo to anyone for like six years. I've kept the rest of the title, as I do like the word 'inane'. It summarises my gut reaction to much of what goes on in most conversations I'm involved in. I'm not sure if it's just me, we'll find out I guess!


*Image of Ryuta, an 'Ouendan' (Japanese male cheerleader who achieves supernatural feats through the power of dance and chanting)