I can’t remember what I was watching, but an artist being interviewed said with quiet matter-of-factness that we live under far harsher censorship now than we did forty years ago.
That idea has been percolating around in my head ever since. It tumbles around attaching itself to other ideas such as the Bush administration and wardrobe malfunctions or even my own filter…
I recently had another look at an old post of mine about smoking. I spoke passionately and directly and didn’t really care who I offended in the process. My cause was (is) just and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to smack you upside the head with it.
Since then I have done the scandal dance a few times, sometimes spectacularly in my own local way. I have turned a few heads and made a lady or two gasp in shock and flick her fan. Once I even questioned my own physical safety. I had discretion when it came to the personal matters of my friends, but I had an opinion on everything. I think I’m far too realistic to be called a firebrand, unless a voice for common sense can be called a firebrand, but let’s call me a torch if not nearly far reaching enough for a beacon. Most of the time I thought of myself as having a deliciously passionate way of pointing out the obvious.
As my awareness of that readership grows, however, I find myself checking that urge to let forth the fury of the wide-open eyes.
I don’t like this yellow flag. It’s not me. Alright- I’ll qualify that. I’m even-keeled and reasonable with the best of them, but when it comes to my blog I don’t think I should be holding back.
I’ve posted a lot lately, but it hasn’t been about the absurdity of the continuing debate on homosexual marriage. Or while we’re on the subject our apparent inability to use the word homosexual except exclusively in reference to males. I haven’t ranted on the validity of allowing the Pope to maintain his position while his health deteriorates or the newsworthiness of the issue. Not a mention out of me about the futility inherent in every move the recording industry makes to control copying. Nothing about the tsunami relief efforts. No word on the hilarity of the MJ trial. No Oscar comments.
Where have I been?
I’ve seen it on other blogs. You can tell when some bloggers have a lot on their minds because their blogs dry up. Little or nothing of substance for days on end. Weeks even.
I do have a lot on my mind. And these are things that aren’t ready for discussion yet, if ever. They’re big & personal and no matter how personable I’ve been in this forum I’ve never talked about anything until I was ready for full disclosure. There’s nothing in here that I’m not willing to discuss as openly as you care to. There are volumes that are not in here.
Even saying I have a lot on my mind is asking for trouble from some corners. If I can get away with scratching a portion of part of one iceberg I’ll just reiterate what I’ve already said- this year is a Year Of Advancement. Moving forward. Taking a big step. Doing Some Stuff. Works in progress are progressing with authority. Change is not only imminent but immediate.
Censorship.
Green Day can have a number one hit with American Idiot but George W Bush can still keep himself, Condoleeza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld employed. People are being detained illegally for years for suspected ties to terrorists and we may hear nothing about it. We would rather spend countless billions on chasing individual people than educating and feeding the whole world because that’s what’s in the news everyday. The Catholic Church forbids condoms in a world with AIDS. You yourself think prostitution, marijuana and homosexuality are wrong just because someone else told you they are.
People still go to doctors for drugs that mask symptoms rather than fix the problem.
People think cosmetic surgery will make them happy.
From the moment we are born til two weeks after we’re dead someone’s trying to sell us something. Shoes. Cars. Suits. Freedom. Religion. Teeth. In such a consumer-driven society who’s got time to worry about conspiracy and censorship? Who really cares?
Follow that line of thinking just a little bit farther and corporations supplant democratically appointed governments. And really, who would miss them? Wouldn’t we rather follow the companies we’ve empowered with our dollars since birth?
Gah. Hell no. Give me elected officials any day. At least in theory we can get rid of them. Corporations are by nature towers of censorship. They grow from little honest mom & pops into burgeoning enterprises with company manuals into multinational conglomerates with more tightly held secrets than the KGB.
Information, for better or worse, needs to be controlled. Complete transparency only works if everybody’s playing, which is an idea that became communism and we’ve seen how well that works.
So I guess when a blog grows up an author needs to make some choices. Who is he writing for? Is it a diary or an open letter? A soap box or a vault. I’m doing less thinking in print and more chronicling events these days. I miss the debate but I’m glad my life has been full of events worth chronicling.
Grant & Lola are back from China with their relationship intact & then some. I look forward to the stories. It will be good to change the mental channels.
I hate that that entry sounded sad and regretful. I hope having your good friends back will help, and that whatever is weighing on your mind so heavily comes to a resolution soon.
K
COMMENT:
Your upset because Spongebob is Gay aren’t you?
Excellent post Adrian. I completely understand where you are coming from.
My best posts are the ones where I let go and shoot off my mouth (says my readers). That I turn around as soon as I post wanting to delete and censer. I always get in the worst trouble for those posts…Lately I can’t bring myself to post anything, because I really don’t know who to write to anymore. My skin is feeling a little to thin to be walking around unravelling sweaters (both my own and other people’s)…So I guess my loyal readers get to hear about my kids and my weekends until I find another muse…
I guess it could be taken that way, Pam, but that’s not how it was intended. I meant that some bloggers don’t talk until they know what they want to say, and sometimes life stacks up too high or too convoluted to be able to do that right away.
As for sushi off naked women and voluntarily going under the knife in a vain chase for an impossible lifestyle… those are ‘nother posts, but well brought up nonetheless.
“I’ve seen it on other blogs. You can tell when some bloggers have a lot on their minds because their blogs dry up. Little or nothing of substance for days on end. Weeks even.”
This could be taken as “I’ve got a life now so I have no time to blog” or even “I only blog about stuff that doesn’t matter, so when I have something profound on my mind it just doesn’t fit so I don’t put it with the other inconsequentials out in blogland.”
Must blurt one comment out on one subject you raised… Call me nuts, but I only recently noticed the tempest in a teapot about Bonzai in Seattle serving sushi off naked women. A few people seemed so outraged about this, and yet elective cosmetic surgery becoming a “norm” isn’t seen as an affront to humanity and the body?
I got excited there for a second.
You’re probably pointing, in part, to a problem with writing itself. Once we sit down and consider life and prepare to write, it changes things. Notwithstanding the possible impact of putting it publicly, writing forces us to figure out what on Earth we think of it all in the first place.
What, me, well-brought-up? ;)
You’ve got to be kidding.
From the same publication:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1164195,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1164268,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1164264,00.html
You should have pointed to this one:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,13031,1428464,00.html
And I would still say that you’re getting caught up in the hype. We do not live in a movie. There is no minute-to-midnight glorious pandemic of peace. All you’re seeing is the continuing pressure by the US for US-favourable installed governments. That’s not democracy, friend. That’s tyranny.
Maybe you’re just a bit bummed out because GW Bush’s War On Terror is working?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1428372,00.html
Time to eat crow boys and girls???
What’s happening globally is tyranny.
The logic is completely straightforward: The US is advancing its own interests under the guise of a grandiose label called Freedom. Read the articles I linked to, especially the one about Haiti.
Do I think it’s all bad? No. I don’t. I think that routing military rule and dictatorships is usually a good thing. What I can’t stand is that the US will not get involved unless they can turn a profit from it. A short term and short sighted profit no less, as we saw in Iraq and Iran ten years ago. Millions die in religious persecution while the US shrugs its shoulders. Women are routinely sexually assaulted or slaughtered. Nothing. Untold millions starve in famine or poverty and the Free World sits idly by.
If Bush sincerely thinks he’s going to save the world then he should not only be investing in the geo-political atmosphere that brings peaceful resolution but also saving his own damned citizens from pitiful education and incestuous tunnel vision.
So what’s happening in Lebanon is tyranny??? I don’t understand your logic. You don’t (or won’t) see anything good coming from this?
How many times do I have to clarify this. The US has taken it upon itself to Save The World For Freedom & Democracy.
And to that I say FINE, but do it for the greater good, not for self-serving and short-sighted political and economic gain. It DOESN’T work. You end up funding tomorrow’s terrorists and ignoring simpler socio-economic issues like feeding and educating your own population.
Learn to save yourself, then save the rest of us.
That’s it.
Big deal! Which country does anything for altruistic reasons??? Canada? Yeah right. All we care about here is our “reputation” and all sorts of other narcissistic ideals. “Millions die in religious persecution while the US shrugs its shoulders. Women are routinely sexually assaulted or slaughtered. Nothing………..” Wow! Those damn Americans should do something! We members of the “global community” won’t stand for it! Why doesn’t the rest of the world do some of the heavy lifting….. and do it without any payback??? It’s not gonna happen dude. Why the double standard?
Although US foreign policy is prone to being belligerent, how can you fault them when these policies bear fruit? You have to give credit where credit is due, if not you’re just being an anti-American bigot.
Peace out!
But I am anti-American. I’ve never made a secret of that. I have some very cool American friends, and by & large most Americans I’ve met have been Good People, but I am completely opposed to most of the agenda America has pursued in foreign policy. I’ve also never made a secret of my opinion that getting rid of Saddam and other tyrannical regimes is a good thing. You don’t have to read between the lines here. I oppose economically short-sighted self-serving political manipulation.
Well, there you have it! An admitted bigot. Why do I bother??? It’s like talking to a member of the KKK about the civil rights movement.
I think you may be the only person on the planet to accuse me of being a bigot. Don’t let that stop you from not bothering though. You’re right that you aren’t going to change my mind about American foreign policy, but that’s only because I’m right & you’re wrong. =)