Let the Absurdity Begin...

1. Just a hint of the cascading absurdities to come, once the “Obama surge” in Afghanistan is implemented: “An official” -- and you'll notice how they stay anonymous much more often these days – said, “... we do reaffirm our long-term strategic partnership with Afghanistan, but not at anything like 100,000 U.S. troops in their country.” At the end of the article we find this nugget: “The rapid dispatch of extra troops would bring the U.S. total there to 98,000.” Wow – thank goodness that 98,000 is nowhere near 100,000...

2. But on the other hand, what's with this mantra endlessly voiced by the MSM, that Americans are “war-weary”? I don't know anyone who's “war-weary” -- people who were against it to begin with still are, and those who were for it still are. It's not as if a significant percentage of Americans have suddenly turned against Wilsonism and globalism. Well, maybe the fact that we're losing has had some impact on morale... but in principle, most Americans (and voters) still reserve the right to invade any country at any time, and stay there for an indefinite period, in order to “spread democracy”, and “defend the American way of life”, etc. This much has not changed. I mean, think about it – how many small-town squares are graced with peace monuments? There might be a few in Vermont, but overall – no. It's always about war, and about the sacrifices “the men of (wherever)” made in order to preserve freedom, etc. etc. Of course, this is just cognitive dissonance at work, as I've said before – a sacrifice that great has to have been worth something, so we ignore the facts and instead cling to abstract concepts as a justification for the massive and needless loss of human life. And this, in turn, is because pride and a masochistic sort of self-respect are just about all we can hope to salvage from the endless round of military follies imposed on us by our “leaders”. Ultimately, the Marine who gets blown to bits in Beirut has to croak, “semper fi” from his hospital bed, because that image – that idea – is all he has left. And the rest of us very dutifully follow suit, because to do otherwise would be unpatriotic -- not to mention inconsiderate and disrespectful. And in the meantime, the cynical sociopaths who run our government and oversee our wars -- and profit immensely from both -- chuckle over brandy and cigars.

3. Henry Waxman, who Rush Limbaugh memorably dubbed “nostrilus giganticus”, has resurfaced the idea of government bailing out “struggling media organizations” -- by which I can only take him to mean the ones that are chronically in bed with the government and are, therefore, crashingly boring and are therefore losing “market share”, sponsors, and customers. Gee, you might as well propose bailing out churches that are losing parishoners. What ever happened to the “marketplace of ideas”? Are CBS, ABC, and NBC really too big to fail? Are Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, and the Washington Post too big to fail? Because you know that's what he's talking about. Lots of luck getting any bailout money to the Washington Times, or the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review – as if they'd accept it. No, this is just a way to subsidize media outlets that are already subsidized through preferential treatment. Apparently the media lapdogs of the administration are getting too skinny, and it's time to fatten them up. The thing to remember in all of this is that the administration and the media are all, ultimately, working for the same people – it goes beyond symbiosis and beyond “incest”... they are, basically, one and the same. The MSM might as well be a government agency, in fact, like Pravda and Izvestia – so it's no surprise that they're about to receive an overt handout. But that, of course, is not the rationale that's being presented. Waxman's position is that “quality journalism (is) essential to democracy” -- quite true, if democracy were what he wanted to preserve, which it isn't. What he wants to preserve is the government's propaganda apparatus, AKA the MSM. He also concedes that the media have a “failing business model”. Yeah – so did the buggy whip makers. Apparently this is one area of American business where competition is not welcome... but we knew that already. But the last word comes from an outfit called Free Press (a bit of irony, there). They refer to “the idea that news-gathering is a public service , not a commodity”. Well... again, it would be a public service if it served the public in some way other than anesthetizing it against the enormities of government... but what it actually does is just the opposite. When Big Brother appears on the giant, flat-screen TV, it's the MSM that bring him into our living rooms, free of charge.

4. On a lighter note – now that the Steelers have, basically, taken themselves out of playoff, not to mention Super Bowl, contention, how would it be if they just relaxed and played football for a change? My theory is that this constant obsession with “the playoffs” creates too much anxiety, and as a result causes a detriment in performance. Ever notice how, when a team is miles ahead in a game, they just start to have fun, and as a result actually play better than they do when in a pinch? This is a very familiar phenomenon to psychologists – although it seems to have escaped the attention of most NFL coaches. When you play because you enjoy playing, you do well; when you have a Sword of Damocles called “The Super Bowl” hanging over your head, you tend to screw up. Now's the Steelers' chance to play some really fine, elegant football for the rest of the season and let someone else worry about what happens in January.