world shut your mouth

those who know me in real life know that i'm fairly well up-to-date and opinionated on current events and news. have been since i was a kid...the newspaper was on the kitchen table every morning, and both my parents read it cover-to-cover, a habit which i've kept to this day (though now the morning papers are on my computer screen). one day after running around the neighborhood seeing what some police to-do was all about, i announced in the way that 8-year olds do that i wanted to be a reporter. i blame most of my interest in news and such on my dad -- the newspaper always in the house, the issues always a regular topic of dinner-table conversation and, when i moved away from my hometown, of phone conversations.

sadly, the shyness that was a major part of my personality until my early twenties would have made it hard for me to be a good reporter. it helps to not be anxious about talking to strangers. i could probably do pretty well now, but it's too late for that kind of a career change. for instance, the idea of being a talking points memo intern sounds appealing, but it would have been more feasible if i were just coming out of college.

so i'll stick with being a pretty good social science researcher and non-professional barroom political and world affairs pundit/gasbag.

this is all by way of making the point that i've been asked why (and have wondered why myself) i avoid commenting on more weighty things anymore. i certainly used to, mainly in repsonse to innanity from charles krauthammer. however, i've realized a few things lately...

first, so many others do it much better than i can ever hope to, mainly because they make their lives all about blogging about news and world affairs -- the blogs i read most frequently -- daily kos, talking points memo, atrios, and the ridiculously prolific and incredibly astute glenn greenwald.

there are plenty of other semi-pro and totally amateur bloggers who do it well also -- kos contributor susang comes to mind, as do the growing legions of local bloggers, best personified at the moment by the connecticut bloggers taking the piss out of joe lieberman.

i just don't have that kind of time or singularity of purpose to read enough other material and be active enough on the ground to post the kind of quality information these folks do. and if they do it so well, and there's so many folks out there already doing it and many others on the way who will be more dedicated than me, well, i'll leave it to them. i don't feel the need to add to the echo chamber if i'm not going to make a substantive enough contribution.

then there's the reason that it's just become all so taxing...iraq; israel/lebanon; a president and congress who do not care about ordinary working americans, are more interested in lining their own pockets and making the rich even richer, and even worse are in fact disdainful of the constitution and the basic underlying values of democracy; a lazy press who have been compliant and complicit in allowing the current ruling class (junta, regime, whatever term fits) to run roughshod over the country...i could go on and on, but it just gets me depressed. thank god for the daily show and the colbert report for the comic relief they provide.

so i'd rather post about new music and hello kitty darth vaders and monkeys on subways. and as newgy points out that i should do more of, write about the egypt/morocco trip.